Self-Driving Cars Teach-Out

There is growing concern about whether or not self-driving cars are going to be accessible and equitable in their development and deployment. In this segment, we hear from Alex Murphy, who is an expert on how poverty and inequality are experienced, structured, and reproduced across the complexities of our social lives. Alex discusses the important issue of access and equity with Carrie and posits valuable questions about current approaches to solving this problem. She also introduces the Transportation Security Index and explains why we need to rethink how we measure access to mobility and transportation as we move forward in the development of self-driving technology.

Alex Murphy is an Assistant Professor in Sociology and a Faculty Affiliate of the Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research. Her research uses ethnographic methods to examine how poverty and inequality are experienced, structured and reproduced across and within multiple domains of social life including neighborhoods, social networks, and the state. She also researches the causes and consequences of transportation insecurity. Full bio here.