SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN Virginia, a man dressed as a car seat seeks the answers to vital questions about how autonomous vehicles interact with the public.
While this isn’t about human research ethics per se it is a useful illustration of circumstances where overt deception is warranted and why higher ethical standards apply when it is used.
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Car Seat Man is part of a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study into human-vehicle interactions—information automakers and tech companies like Google will find invaluable as they loose thousands of self-driving cars onto the country’s roads. The Institute confirmed that the guy inside that definitely-not-store-bought car seat costume and his shiny new van are part of its research effort. It didn’t have much to say beyond that, but the Institute notes on its website that it hopes to observe how humans react to robocars, and determine whether the folks making such vehicles should consider design tweaks to ease any tension or avoid any confusion.
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