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The equally interesting question is what you think computer drivers should do differently when driving near a car that is under computer control. For example,

The equally interesting question is what you think computer drivers should do differently when driving near a car that is under computer control. For example, if your computer control car knows that the car behind is also computer controlled, it could be more aggressive on the brakes to avoid a forward collision without causing a rear collision.

greglindahl 9y ago
Lots of cars have automatic braking these days, and I bet exactly zero of them care about the car behind them.
- sjwright 9y ago
  Correct, that's the situation today. Tomorrow, the situation might be that a computer controlled car could see that the car behind is tailgating and the car in the next lane is computer controlled — then determine the safest action would be to swerve into the next lane rather than brake suddenly...
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    That's getting into trolley problem territory. I'd prefer that my car not do crazy shit.
    - sjwright 9y ago
      There's no way to avoid the trolley problem as long as you're developing self-driving cars. You can wilfully ignore the trolley problem and let the algorithm do whatever it does, but that doesn't make it go away. And I would dispute that emergency braking suddenly while being tailgated is less "crazy shit" than swerving into the next lane where your presence will, with an exceptional degree of confidence, be immediately detected and compensated for. To clarify, the scenario in my mind is one that would be bold but not dangerous; something a good human driver might do with 360° situational awareness. In this instance it could be the difference between swerving to miss an obstacle or a multiple-car collision — even if your self driving car can stop in time, the tailgater is likely to slam into you, which in turn slams you into the obstacle. Or to change the situation a bit, if the "tailgating" car happened to be a self driving car with an aggressive profile, that could swing the decision back towards braking. Point is, knowing that a car is being driven by a computer can aid decisions made by other cars.

greglindahl 9y ago

Lots of cars have automatic braking these days, and I bet exactly zero of them care about the car behind them.

sjwright 9y ago
Correct, that's the situation today. Tomorrow, the situation might be that a computer controlled car could see that the car behind is tailgating and the car in the next lane is computer controlled — then determine the safest action would be to swerve into the next lane rather than brake suddenly...
- greglindahl 9y ago
  That's getting into trolley problem territory. I'd prefer that my car not do crazy shit.
  - sjwright 9y ago
    There's no way to avoid the trolley problem as long as you're developing self-driving cars. You can wilfully ignore the trolley problem and let the algorithm do whatever it does, but that doesn't make it go away. And I would dispute that emergency braking suddenly while being tailgated is less "crazy shit" than swerving into the next lane where your presence will, with an exceptional degree of confidence, be immediately detected and compensated for. To clarify, the scenario in my mind is one that would be bold but not dangerous; something a good human driver might do with 360° situational awareness. In this instance it could be the difference between swerving to miss an obstacle or a multiple-car collision — even if your self driving car can stop in time, the tailgater is likely to slam into you, which in turn slams you into the obstacle. Or to change the situation a bit, if the "tailgating" car happened to be a self driving car with an aggressive profile, that could swing the decision back towards braking. Point is, knowing that a car is being driven by a computer can aid decisions made by other cars.