Students Role-play Autonomous Driving Tragedy Before Automakers Have To

Graduate students from the University of Michigan are currently engaged in a twisted role-playing game, where they attempt to cope with the media backlash following various failures of self-driving cars. The exercise is intended to help them understand the pitfalls associated with autonomous tech and how to best respond when it goes terribly awry — something automakers will also have to go through as self-driving vehicles become more prevalent.

Broken into teams of four, 30 groups across the Ann Arbor campus were confronted with a pretend automated tragedy last night. The details were delivered to them in much the same way they would have been to a real manufacturer: through phone calls, emails, social media, and in-person meetings.

They have until tonight to mitigate the fallout from the incident, generating business solutions in a faux 24-hour news cycle.

The 30 teams are also competing for a $3,000 scholarship, part of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business’ annual Leadership Crisis Challenge. Brian Flanagan, managing director of the school’s Sanger Leadership Center and lead event organizer, explained to Automotive News that it’s an opportunity to practice leadership without the chance high-stakes fallout. Out in the real world, they’ll never have that cushion.

“There is significant uncertainty about how the industry will take shape around autonomous vehicles, what factors will differentiate winners from losers in the marketplace, what legal and regulatory infrastructure will evolve, and how it will all ultimately impact society,” Flanagan explained. “In other words, not only do students have a crisis to contend with, they must do so within the context of an emerging industry and all of its uncertainties.”

In the scenario, the students all possess leadership roles at Dryyver — a fake driverless car company that offers an Uber-like ride-haling service. At the start of simulation, Dryyver is about to announce its first successful rollout of an autonomous fleet of taxis. There’s even a phony commercial for the pretend company.

Everything is going swimmingly. But then, in the early evening, reports begin streaming in that a cyclist was involved in serious accident with one of the vehicles and the story is picked up on social media and local media outlets. Initial reports point to one of Dryyver’s taxis failing to stop for the cyclist.

The exercise is brimming with semi-hysterical examples of board members coming down hard on the team and a worst-case media response. But the students are supposed to treat the entire situation as if it were real.

Eventually, the pretend woman on the bicycle pretend dies and the fake press smells blood. (The report was intentionally scheduled to occur late at night to throw students, who had spent the entire day working on their presentations to the board, a massive curveball.)

Public outrage builds all morning and an investigative report surfaces that attributes the company’s corporate culture as the cause of the accident. Still in the midst of this faux hell, the participating students now must present their case to an angry board.

While the students are merely acting out a scenario, the complexities and risks of delivering an autonomous fleet are genuine. Automakers have to deal with this kind of thing for real. Without a driver to blame, Flanagan said, “The businesses and business leaders who produce the technology will be squarely in the crosshairs.”

A couple of companies have already received a small taste of what that’s like. Uber saw one of its autonomous test vehicles wreck in Tempe, Arizona, last year and Tesla Motors was forced to explain why one of its customers died when his Autopilot-controlled vehicle plowed into a semi-trailer on a Florida highway in 2016. However, both of those incidents were ultimately blamed on human error.

The three finalist teams face a panel of journalists Friday at a press conference at Michigan Stadium. The winning team gains the $3,000 scholarship. Each runner-up team recieves $1,000.

[Image: Ford Motor Company]