The Impact Of Privacy-Safety Tradeoff Of Autonomous Vehicles On Privacy Disclosure

As a revolutionary and innovative application of artificial intelligence technology in the field of transportation,autonomous vehicles are currently at a critical stage of development,but there are still many bottlenecks in marketing,technology development,policies and regulations.Among them,the safety of autonomous vehicles is of particular concern.On the one hand,in order to realize the commercial operation of "fully automated driving" and accelerate the popularization of autonomous vehicles in China,we must first ensure the safety and reliability of autonomous vehicles during their operation,which relies on enterprises to collect massive amounts of data inside and outside the vehicle to optimize autonomous vehicle algorithms and models.On the other hand,the low transparency of the collection,preservation,and use of user privacy by autonomous vehicles has led to strong consumer concerns about the risks of privacy leakage and abuse,which often inhibit their privacy disclosure behavior.The key to solving this dilemma is whether consumers understand the tradeoff between user privacy and personal safety,i.e.,that the privacy data disclosed will help companies continuously optimize the algorithms and systems of autonomous vehicles,thereby improving personal safety.At present,there is a paucity of research focusing on the relationship between privacy risks and safety benefits of emerging technologies,and little is known about how consumers perceive the relationship between the two,how the trade-off between privacy and safety affects their privacy disclosure behaviors,and what psychological mechanisms drive this effect.Therefore,this paper attempts to extend the discussion of the privacy-personalization paradox in the application of AI technology to the relationship between privacy and safety in the scenario of autonomous vehicles,to explore the impact of the relationship on privacy disclosure behavior and its underlying mechanisms,and to provide scientific guidelines for autonomous vehicle companies to obtain better user data,so as to provide scientific guides for autonomous vehicle companies to obtain better user data,so as to mitigate the long-tail effect of data and carry out continuous technical improvement.This paper first defines the meaning of "privacy-safety tradeoff" for autonomous vehicles,constructs a theoretical framework of "tradeoff → construal level → privacy disclosure",and proposes the hypothesis of this study: consumers’ privacy-safety tradeoff for autonomous vehicles increases the depth and breadth of their privacy disclosures because the tradeoff influences their privacy disclosures by increasing their construal level,and the effect becomes stronger when focusing on the future.Next,a mixed research approach combining in-depth interviews and three randomized experiments was used to test the hypotheses.Specifically,in the indepth interviews,we conducted preliminary corroboration of the research questions through multiple perspectives of industry experts,firms,and consumers,and developed experimental materials;in the pilot study,we verified the validity of the measures of the independent and dependent variables and the manipulation methods of the moderating variables,and conducted preliminary validation of the main effect of the privacy-safety tradeoff affecting individuals’ privacy disclosure behaviors;in Study 1,we further tested the mediating role of construal level in the process of privacy-safety tradeoff influencing privacy disclosure behavior based on the main effect again;Study 2 verified the moderating role of temporal focus on the mediating variable in the process of privacy-safety tradeoff influencing privacy disclosure behavior.As a result,this paper draws three main conclusions: First,privacy-safety tradeoff promotes consumers’ privacy disclosure behavior,and consumers who engage in tradeoff have higher depth and breadth of disclosure than those who do not engage in tradeoff.Second,construal level plays a mediating role in the effect of privacy-safety tradeoff on privacy disclosure,with higher interpretation level and higher depth and breadth of privacy disclosure among passengers who engage in tradeoff compared to those who do not.Third,there is a moderating mediating role of temporal focus in the effect of privacy-safety tradeoff on privacy disclosure,with future-focused passengers enhancing the extent to which the privacy-safety tradeoff increases the construal level,and thus the depth and breadth of privacy disclosure,compared to present-focused passengers.In summary,this paper extends the existing research on privacy disclosure to the theoretical framework of "privacy-safety tradeoff" of autonomous vehicles for the first time,and uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigate the privacy disclosure in autonomous vehicle scenarios and the mechanisms underlying the privacy-safety tradeoff affecting consumer privacy disclosure behavior.The results of this study are a theoretical solution to the problem of privacy disclosure in autonomous vehicle scenarios.The research results theoretically fill the research gap of privacy paradox in autonomous vehicle scenarios,expand the application of construal level theory in privacy disclosure topics,and enrich the connotation of temporal focus in consumer behavior research;in marketing practice,it helps autonomous travel service providers to consciously strengthen the proportion of security in the tradeoff,optimize the time point and form of information collection,and improve the efficiency of information utilization It has certain practical guidance significance.