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I wonder if there's going to be a lot of weird social side-effects to self-driving cars like call screening was when answering machines came into wide use on ph
by EdSharkey 10y ago
I wonder if there's going to be a lot of weird social side-effects to self-driving cars like call screening was when answering machines came into wide use on phones.
For example, as it has been explained to me, self-driving car software will drive defensively by default, and offensively/efficiently when they judge it safe.
Okay, so say self-driving car driving hits critical mass. In this scenario, most people in cars are free to amuse themselves with their phones or reading books, etc while riding their self-driving cars to work. Many are looking down, not at the road, perhaps they're not even in the drivers' seat.
What will happen if there's that one lunatic who opts to drive himself to work and drives in the most offensive, reckless manner? Won't all of the self-driving cars he encounters slam on their brakes to avoid collisions? There likely won't be any accidents, but there will be MANY frightened or startled commuters!
What will this phenomena be called? Road Trolling? And, will there be collective Twitter hashtag outrage that develops as a result?
I can imagine in the most extreme Los Angeles commuter scenario, a serial Road Troll being hunted by one hundred fellow commuters that he rudely cut off on his drive - their auto-drive cars set to "follow that car!", eventually becoming cornered in some residential area when he runs out of gas and then beat to death by the angry mob.
- infogulch 10y agoNope. When blatant law-breaking like this happens, every car that observed it will send a detailed record of the event to the police including the license plate. (Maybe after their passenger hits the big flashing "Report reckless driving" button.) Using street cameras the car will be automatically tracked until it stops (possibly alerting other autonomous cars to the upcoming presence of a dangerous driver which in turn drive extra defensively), where the police will arrive minutes later to arrest the driver if the infraction was serious enough or the driver will receive a letter/email with a ticket for reckless endangerment.
- EdSharkey 10y agoHmm, I suspect there is a big gray area here and not the Brave New World you describe. One can be an intensely rude driver and still fall within the law. Trolls might randomly hit their brakes hard just to see the auto-driver behind reflexively lurch and enjoy the passenger's reactions. Probably no one gets hurt, and there's no way to prove the troll wasn't legitimately trying to avoid hitting something.
- xkcd-sucks 10y agoPerhaps a "sesame credit"[0] type of thing where observers contribute driving patterns to an aggregator which generates a score and, e.g., orders 1000 pizzas/calls a SWAT team to the house of an unharmonious driver? [0]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186
- leohutson 10y agoDoesn't even need to be a traffic infringement, most jurisdictions have loose catch-all minor crimes like "disturbing the peace" or "disorderly conduct", with pretty low burdens of proof.