The Bassetti Foundation presents a white paper on the development of driverless technology and its social impact.

The presentation of this innovative new format took place at the Smart City: Materials, Technology & People exhibition, curated by Giulio Ceppi for Material ConneXion Italia and currently on display at Superstudio Più in via Tortona, Milano.
“RESPONSIBILITY DRIVEN DESIGN FOR THE FUTURE SELF-DRIVING SOCIETY” is a white paper dedicated to analyzing the development of driverless technology and the impact that this technological phenomenon will have on the society of the future.

The white paper is the fruit of a course held earlier this year at the School of Design at the Milan Polytechnic, the product of a collaboration between the School and the Bassetti Foundation. The particular focus of this course was the role of design and responsible innovation in the development of the self-driving society of the future, with the aim of demonstrating how a design and responsibility-based approach can lead to the development of unexpected and surprising scenarios.
Within the presentation event a debate unfolded that included the participation of Fabio Terragni, President of M4 spa, Leandro Agrò, Digital Product Director of Design Group Italia, Giulio Ceppi, architect, designer and Professor at the Milan Polytechnic, Tommaso Gecchelin, Founder and CTO of Next Future Transportation Inc., Angela Simone, Project Designer and Manager for the Bassetti Foundation and Fabio Besti, Design Consultant for the Bassetti Foundation and author of the paper. The debate was moderated by Francesco Samorè General Secretary of the Bassetti Foundation. The debate will shortly be made available on this website in its entirety.

As Francesco Samorè argues, “the prospect of a self-driving society put into place through the development of artificial intelligence forces us to confront the question: self-driving or driverless? With its enormous potential but also with its (not always foreseeable) risks, driverless technology (through the meeting of big data, algorithms and artificial intelligence) takes us well beyond just the field of mobility, but raises issues of problems of governance (to which a chapter of the paper is dedicated) and highlights the variety of tools available to the innovator, be they entrepreneurs, designers or policy-makers“.

Alongside its authors Fabio Besti and Francesco Samorè, the paper also includes contributions from Angela Simone and Jonathan Hankins, as well as a series of workshop presentations produced by students during the course and a comprehensive collection of further readings and resources.

The white paper Responsibility driven design for the future self-driving society can be freely downloaded alongside the design tools Responsibility Matrix for the Self Driving Society & Collingridge Positioning that are described within the paper, via registration for the Bassetti Foundation newsletter.

Below some photos