‘Public Acceptance’ can be a challenging theme for Future Flight consortia to approach. Hear from Professor Edmond Awad on the ‘Moral Machine’, Professor Susan Molyneux-Hodgson discussing responsible innovation and technical democracy and Professor Sarah Hartley on moving from public acceptance to knowledge co-production. This session will focus on: - What ‘public acceptance’ means, and key challenges consortia face around public trust and acceptance of new technologies in the context of the Future of Flight - Research areas and approaches to understanding barriers of public trust and acceptance of future of flight challenge proposals - Potential Tools for public engagement and data collection, drawing a picture on the public perception of ethical implications, trust, and responsibility - Areas such as the Ethics of Technology; Responsible Innovation; Interdisciplinary collaboration; Public Engagement and Computational Social Science

1. Future Flight Fridays
Monthly Webinar Series

2. Aim of webinar series
• Exchange knowledge
• Gain new insights
• Maintain dialogue around Future
Flight
• Build new connections
• Find technology or services to
help develop your ideas

3. AGENDA

4. Responsible Innovation
and Technical Democracy
Professor Susan Molyneux-Hodgson FRSA
Professor of Sociology
Associate Dean for Research

5. Recent Projects
• Medical applications of ionising radiation: AI, ethics & patient involvement (2020 – 2023, EC)
• Manufacture of renewable alternative chemicals: Responsible innovation in industry (2017-19, InnovateUK)
• DeToX: whole cell biocatalysis by engineering resistance to toxic products and substrates: Responsible
research & innovation in practice (2016 – 2021, BBSRC)
• Inclusive and international risk assessment: Building a framework for gene drive organisms through
collaboration (2020-2022, British Academy)
• Ethics and AI: Understanding privacy in private spaces (2019-2024, EPSRC and Dyson)
• Co-producing knowledge co-production across disciplines and borders: The case of gene drive mosquitoes in
the UK and Mali (2017, British Academy)
• MyGoodness, an online platform for public engagement on charity dilemmas (2018, The Life You Can Save)
• Blame and responsibility attributions to humans and machines (2018-present)

6. Responsible innovation
• RI is a way to reflect and act during the process of
innovation and enables responsiveness to the needs
and concerns of stakeholders
• Provides for accountability in the public realm
supports diversification of the values that underpin
technological advancement
• Given imperfect foresight, provides direction on ways
to proceed under conditions of ignorance and
uncertainty
• Allows for consideration of the purposes and not just
the products of science and technology

7. Technical Democracy
• Technical democracy is a way of thinking about social order
that allows for social and technical concerns to be
entangled.
• Opens up “secluded research” and acknowledges
uncertainties as an integral part of knowledge making
• Suggests ‘hybrid forums’ as spaces in which dialogue
between stakeholders can take place
• Avoids technical R&D that is ‘protected by an institutional
web of social and technological practices...[that] engender
a restricted scope for public discussion and democratic
involvement within .. decision making’ (Irwin et al 2000)

8. My questions for Future Flight
• How can we work together across social and technical
R&D communities to ensure future flight meets societal
need?
• What formats could collaboration take and what foci
could they have?
• What ideas, concepts and theories currently inform the
approach to future flight & do they need to change?
• What is the ‘right’ role for social sciences in future flight?
• What, specifically, can sociology and science studies bring
to the table?

9. Ways forward
• Find new ways to frame problems/issues/challenges
that can take into account diverse perspectives and
be responsive to concerns as they arise
• Gain nuance in how to understand ‘societal good’;
there will be winners and losers and need to be aware
of that how may be patterned
• Good communication and good governance are
insufficient for successful technological diffusion

10. The direction of travel:
From public trust to co-production
Professor Sarah Hartley
Department of Science, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship
University of Exeter Business School

11. Science/society in the 1980s

12. ‘The public understanding of science’
Public interest in science in decline
The public don’t understand science
Need to educate them
Still common way of thinking in science
Bodmer Report, 1985

13. • The public don’t support science
• The public don’t understand science
• Need to educate them
• Still common way of thinking in science
However ….
• Knowledge does not explain support for science
The deficit model

14. Crisis in
science:
1990s

15. ‘Science and Society’ 2000
House of Lords Select Committee
on Science and Technology
• Science / society crises caused
by lack of trust in science
• How to build trust?
• Public engagement
• Two-way relationship

16. Four key learnings for
challenge-led research
• Motivations matter
• Technology is political
• Publics not public
• Co-production is the new engagement
future of mobility

17. Motivations matter
Normative
• It’s the right thing to do
Instrumental
• Build trust and acceptance or gather social intelligence
Substantive
• Better technology outcomes through diverse knowledge

18. Technology is political Upstream engagement
needed

19. Publics not public
• Publics could be people from
stakeholder groups, end users, NGOs,
interest groups, sector representatives,
or citizens
• Publics hold knowledge that can help develop robust
technologies capable of solving societal challenges
• Questioning technology does not imply irrationality or ignorance

20. Co-production is the
new engagement

21. Co-production is the
new engagement• Co-production is being used to:
• Frequent slippage toward deficit models of engagement driven by
instrumental and normative motivations
• Co-production is remarkably difficult to do – requires power-sharing and
trust
• Enact responsibility
• Solve global challenges
• Do ‘better’ research

22. The Moral Machine Experiment
Edmond Awad
e.awad@exeter.ac.uk
@EdmondAwad
https://edmondawad.me

24. -90%
Reduction in Traffic Accidents
Source: McKinsey & Co. (2015)

26. Bonnefon, J. F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2016). The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. Science, 352(6293).

29. moralmachine.mit.edu

33. Interventionism
Relation to AV
Legality
Gender
vs.
vs.
stay swerve
passengers pedestrians
IllegalLegal
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.
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Males Females
Young Elderly
Large Fit
Low High
Pets Human
s
Less More
Age
Fitness
Social Status
Species
No. Characters

34. 4M Users
40M Decisions
550K Full Surveys
10 Languages

36. Map of the "lit" worldMM World Map

37. = P(choosing the right-hand side) - P(choosing the left-hand
side)

38. .
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39. AMCEs at country
level.
Hierarchical
clustering using
Euclidean distance
measure and Ward’s
variance minimization
algorithm on the nine
z-scores of the
countries
Inglehart-Welzel
cultural map

43. Cluster
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CAN
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COL
CRI
HRV
CZE
DNK
DOM
ECU
EGY
SLV
EST
FIN
FRA
DEU
GRC
GTM
HND
HKG
HUN
ISL
IND
IDN
IRN
IRQ
IRLISR
ITA
JAM
JPN
JOR
KEN
KWT
LVA
LBN
LTU
LUX
MYS
MLT
MEX
MAR
NLD
NZL
NOR
PAK
PAN
PER
PHL
POL
PRT
ROU
RUS
SAU
SRB
SGP
SVK
SVN
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KOR
ESP
LKA
SWE
CHE
TWN
THA
TTO
TUR
UKR
ARE
GBR
USA
URY
VEN
VNM
ρ = 0.5
p < 1e−04
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ρ = 0.43
p < 1e−040.4
0.5
0.6
25 50 75
Individualism
SparingtheYoung
0.4
0.5
0.6
0 25 50 75 100
Individualism
SparingMoreCharacters

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ALB
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ARG
ARM
AUS
AUT
AZE
BEL
BGD
BGR
BHR
BHS
BIH
BLR
BOL
BRA
BRB
BRN
CAN
CHE
CHL
CHN
COL
CRI
CYP
CZE
DEU
DNKDOM
DZA
ECU
EGY
ESP EST
FIN
FRA
GBR
GEO
GRC
GTM
GUM
HKG
HND
HRV
HUN
IDN
IND
IRL
IRN
IRQ
ISL
ISR
ITA
JAM
JEY
JOR
JPN
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KEN
KGZ
KHM
KOR
KWT
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LKA
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LUX
LVA
MAC
MAR
MDA
MDG
MDV
MEX
MKD
MLTMMR
MNEMNE
MNG
MTQ
MUS
MYS
NGA
NIC
NLD
NOR
NPL
NZL
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PAK
PAN
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PHL
POL
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SAU
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SLV
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SVK
SVN
SWE
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THA
TTO TUN
TUR
TWN
UKR
URY
USA
UZB
VEN
VNM
ZAF
ρ = 0.3
p = 8e−04
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ρ = 0.34
p = 2e−04
0.25
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0.35
0.40
0.45
3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
Log GDP pc
SparingtheLawful
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
−2 −1 0 1 2
Rule of Law
SparingtheLawful