People don't hate self-driving cars because they're glitchy; they hate them because it feels like the car is 'stealing' their freedom.
Humans often view autonomy as a zero-sum game; if a device gets smarter and more independent, we feel we are becoming less powerful. This 'autonomy gap' explains why we resist helpful automation even when it works perfectly.
Technology's Catch-22? A Theory of Zero-Sum Autonomy
SSRN · 6443080
Autonomous products-robot vacuums, smart home systems, self-driving vehicles-represent an expanding product class, yet consumer acceptance lags behind technological capability and marketing spending. We introduce the Theory of Zero-Sum Autonomy to explain this gap. The theory's core construct, zero-sum autonomy construal (ZAC), is a relational judgment in which consumers interpret gains in product autonomy as losses of their own autonomy. Consumerautonomous product interaction is susceptible to