Innovation, technology and society: a study of the controversies around autonomous vehicles in Brazil and France
Kelly Carvalho Vieira, Valderí de Castro Alcântara, Isabelle Nicolaı̈, André Grützmann, Thaís Assis de Souza · Revista Gestão & Tecnologia · 2024
Objective: The purpose of this article is to understand the controversies surrounding autonomous vehicles, explaining how this disruptive innovation has been implemented in different ways in Brazil and France.Methodology: We mobilized the perspective of the Actor-Network Theory that overcomes an individualistic view by describing the heterogeneous interactions between humans and non-humans in the innovation process. The method of this study was cartography of controversies. Data were collected through YouTube videos, scientific articles, law texts, texts in magazines and by inserting one of the researchers in a discussion group on the subject.Originality/Relevance: This study departs from a perspective that circumvents the technological determinism of a technoscience that tends to discard broader social implications such as transformations in experiences, ethical and moral issues, inequalities and work.Main Results: Autonomous vehicles transit through different uncertainties that permeate controversies involving four central issues: business models, transport planning and urban mobility, public policies, ethical aspects and legal issues.Theoretical/methodological contributions: The study demonstrates that there is the performance of multiple autonomous vehicles in practices related to public policies, ethical and legal aspects, urban mobility and new business models – in each practice, vehicle technology is enacted in different ways. So far, a VA is not a stabilized artifact, it is a technology whose design is, today, in the midst of several controversies.