  The discussion between the automotive industry, governments, ethicists,
policy makers and general public about autonomous cars' moral agency is
widening, and therefore we see the need to bring more insight into what
meta-factors might actually influence the outcomes of such discussions, surveys
and plebiscites. In our study, we focus on the psychological (personality
traits), practical (active driving experience), gender and rhetoric/framing
factors that might impact and even determine respondents' a priori preferences
of autonomous cars' operation. We conducted an online survey (N=430) to collect
data that show that the third person scenario is less biased than the first
person scenario when presenting ethical dilemma related to autonomous cars.
According to our analysis, gender bias should be explored in more extensive
future studies as well. We recommend any participatory technology assessment
discourse to use the third person scenario and to direct attention to the way
any autonomous car related debate is introduced, especially in terms of
linguistic and communication aspects and gender.
