"It's small talk, jim, but not as we know it.": engendering trust through human-agent conversation in an autonomous, self-driving car

Abstract

The use of speech has been popularised as a human-vehicle interface in the automotive domain. While this is most often associated with alleviating concerns of driver distraction and cognitive load, the study explores whether the presence of conversation could, in and of itself, engender trust in the technology, based on our understanding of speech in humans. Thirty-four participants were transported in a fully-autonomous, self-driving 'pod' vehicle, accompanied by a natural-language, conversational interface ('UltraCab'), which was delivered using Wizard-of-Oz methodology. Emergent, trust-related themes were identified from the conversation that took place between participants and UltraCab, posing the question of whether participants sought an emotional connection with the vehicle, or whether conversation remained primarily functional. Implications for trust and the design of conversational interfaces are discussed.