Scientists unveil strategies to make self-driven vehicles passenger-friendly

Existing explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) approaches majorly cater to developers, focusing on high-risk scenarios or comprehensive explanations, potentially unsuitable for passengers. To fill this gap, passenger-centric XAI models need to understand the type and timing of information needed in real-world driving scenarios.

Addressing this gap, a research team, led by Professor SeungJun Kim from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), South Korea, investigated the explanation demands of automated vehicle passengers in real-road conditions. They then introduced a multimodal dataset, called TimelyTale, which includes passenger-specific sensor data for timely and context-relevant explanations. "Our research shifts the focus of XAI in autonomous driving from developers to passengers. We have developed an approach for gathering passenger's actual demand for in-vehicle explanations and methods to generate timely, situation-relevant explanations for passengers," explains Prof. Kim.

Their findings are available in two studies published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies on September 27, 2023, and September 09, 2024. The authors were awarded the 'Distinguished Paper Award' at UbiComp 2024 for their pioneering study titled 'What and When to Explain?: On-road Evaluation of Explanations in Highly Automated Vehicles'.

The researchers first studied the impact of various visual explanation types, including perception, attention, and a combination of both, and their timing on passenger experience under real driving conditions by utilizing augmented reality. They found that the vehicle's perception state alone improved trust, perceived safety, and situational awareness without overwhelming the passengers. They also discovered that traffic risk probability was most effective for deciding when to deliver explanations, especially when passengers felt overloaded with information.

Building upon these findings, the researchers developed the TimelyTale dataset. This approach includes exteroceptive (regarding the external environment, such as sights, sounds etc.), proprioceptive (about the body' positions and movements), and interoceptive (about the body's sensations such as pain etc.) data, gathered from passengers using a variety of sensors in naturalistic driving scenarios, as key features for predicting their explanation demands. Notably, this work also incorporates the concept of interruptibility, which refers to the shift in focus of the passengers from NDRTs to driving-related information. The method effectively identified both the timing and frequency of the passenger's demands for explanations as well as specific explanations that passengers want during driving situations.

Using this approach, the researchers developed a machine-learning model that predicts the best time for providing an explanation. Additionally, as proof of concept, the researchers conducted city-wide modeling for generating textual explanations based on different driving locations.

"Our research lays the groundwork for increased acceptance and adoption of autonomous vehicles, potentially reshaping urban transportation and personal mobility in the coming years," remarks Prof. Kim.