Driving Decisions: How Autonomous Vehicles Make Sense of the World - Hardcover

Hind, Sam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9819717485 ISBN 13: 9789819717484

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024

Synopsis

Driving Decisions: How Autonomous Vehicles Make Sense of the World examines the phenomenon of autonomous driving, and the ongoing, complex, costly, and contentious quest to automate driving. Principally organized around the concept of algorithmic decision-making, the book considers how different mapping, sensing, and machine learning (ML)-dependent capabilities are gifted to autonomous vehicles through different kinds of technical work: from computer science students annotating visual data in industry-funded research centres to software engineers designing ‘end-to-end’ ML models at autonomous vehicle start-ups. 

The book intends to complicate, and question, typical understandings of autonomous driving by going ‘under the hood’, challenging the technological determinism or ‘decisionism’ that advocates offer of an inevitable, fully automated, future. Drawing on seven years of research in a range of empirical contexts, the book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of science and technology studies, media studies, digital sociology, human geography, and mobilities and transport studies.

About this title

About the Author

Sam Hind is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Manchester, UK. He researches digital navigation, sensing, and automobility through the lens of algorithmic decision-making and AI. He has studied technological shifts in driving and automotive navigation for over 10 years, with a particular interest in how big tech companies have sought to disrupt the automotive industry.

From the Back Cover

This book examines the phenomenon of autonomous driving, and the ongoing, complex, costly, and contentious quest to automate driving. It is organized around the concept of algorithmic decision-making, with a particular focus on the ‘advance decisions’ necessary to automate driving, and driving decisions as rudimentary as turning a corner, merging onto a motorway, or stopping at traffic lights. The author investigates how mapping, sensing, and machine learning capabilities are gifted to autonomous vehicles through the technical work performed by an array of actors in multiple locations: from users of advanced driver assistance devices enthusiastically serving as volunteer data collectors, to graduate students developing computational solutions in university research initiatives, and from software developers running computer simulations at big tech firms to their counterparts at autonomous vehicle start-ups overseeing active robotaxi services. 

This book intends to complicate, and question, typical understandings of autonomous driving by going ‘under the hood’, challenging the determinism, or ‘technological decisionism’, that advocates depend on to offer their vision of an inevitable, fully automated, future. It will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of Science and Technology Studies, media studies, digital sociology, human geography, mobilities and transport studies, and digital methodologies.

Sam Hind is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Manchester, UK. He researches digital navigation, sensing, and automobility through the lens of algorithmic decision-making. He has studied technological shifts in driving and automotive navigation for over 10 years, with a particular interest in how big tech companies have sought to disrupt the automotive industry. 

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9819717485
• ISBN 13: 9789819717484
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 284