Shaping the problems that need solving to enable the safe introduction of autonomous vehicles

It was not a coincidence my path and York’s kept converging. Because of the progress in the area of AI, all of a sudden, it looked like the world was opening up to all these new possibilities. At the same time. It was opening up a whole new raft of questions, which traditional safety engineering wasn't really built to answer. I’ve always wanted to collaborate with York. John McDermid and I share a common world view, and he suggested I become a Programme Fellow, which enabled me to spend time in York collaborating with colleagues there.

There are different paradigms for safety in different sectors. Each has its own paradigm and is reaching the limits of those. Structures have become calcified in these industries – particularly in the language and setting of industry standards. The Programme can then disrupt those staid structures. It's something that the AAIP is really well placed to do because it's got this broad view and looks at the concept of autonomy itself, rather than one particular industry, and the problems associated with autonomy rather than road regulations for example.

I call this new field of research ‘safety assurance under uncertainty’. Structures are beginning to form whereas at the start of the AAIP it was vague, like, everything was shrouded in cloud. We are trying to understand what works, what doesn't work and how to approach these issues. The next phase, I think, is really about trying to feed this into reality.

[Without the AAIP] we wouldn’t have the novel, interdisciplinary ways of thinking. Instead, we would all be working independently. My work would be seen as a lone voice. The programme allows ideas to be tested and workshopped. We determine if the idea is viable, but crucially, then we have the critical mass to actually do something with it. I see a very broad, interdisciplinary consensus that can have more of an impact and achieve greater levels of acceptance.