Proof After Compression: Causal Attribution in Crashes Involving End-to-End Automated Driving Systems

Abstract

When an end-to-end automated driving system neither forms nor retains a recoverable, decision-specific semantic record, investigators cannot reconstruct the internal path from perception to control. This study develops condition verification to produce contestable causal findings from the records that remain. The study combines information-structure analysis; comparative mapping of five verification questions to regulated and manufacturer-held evidence in the United States, European Union, United Nations vehicle-regulation system, and China; and scenario analysis of two constructed Level 3 crashes. Evidence sources span regulated recorders, fleet incident and exposure records, and manufacturer training, validation, and boundary-management materials. Where no decision-specific semantic record is formed and retained, the internal account is eliminated rather than merely opaque; additional logging and interpretability tools cannot restore it. Each question maps to records either mandated where Level 3 systems are approved or held by manufacturers; the sole new duty is a training-coverage disclosure. Across two contrasting Level 3 crashes, the same instrument set establishes event-level system contribution in one and negates it in the other, alongside three typed systemic findings resolved as established, negated, or indeterminate. For incomplete Level 2 records, an indirect path permits a rebuttable inference only when event anchors, a matched fleet propensity, no sufficient alternative account, and operator-controlled record gaps subject to retention duties coincide. Where burden-shifting instruments reallocate a proof object that neither party can establish, condition verification changes the object itself: from the unrecorded internal path to verifiable external conditions. Its indirect path gives the malfunction doctrine a version-indexed, exposure-normalized form for continuously updated fleets. Investigators can apply the protocol as a checklist linked to identified records and custodians. Insurers can incorporate its typed findings into claims analysis. Courts and regulators receive structured predicates for defect, negligence, causation, and apportionment, not final determinations.