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by screwt 3435 days ago
For self-driving cars, I'd much rather your code control _all_ the cars, not just an individual.

Individualistic driving leads to worse overall performance for everyone. One of the things I'm most looking forward to in an all-code-controlled driving future is seeing efficient highway traffic moving fast and smoothly.

(And yes, clearly there's a long transition period where some cars are controlled while others are still human-driven.)

3 comments

> I'd much rather your code control _all_ the cars, not just an individual.

That's not how the world works though. The only thing you can control is your own actions. Trying to control other people's actions is a recipe for failure.

> Trying to control other people's actions is a recipe for failure.

Trying to control other people’s actions is called a law.

> (And yes, clearly there's a long transition period

After that transition period, the automobile designers will start to optimize for a use case where the majority of the traffic is autonomous and agree on standards of how to align the different designs' goals.

It seems like that tipping point is so far away as to not make sense spending time on now. And I imagine even a century from now you will still see some vehicles driven by humans. There will always be exceptional transportation use cases, including cases where the autonomous vehicles forfeit control because of confusion or material defect (bad sensors, weather, etc).

Another advantage is that pedestrians can just walk wherever they want and cars will safely avoid them. Much more freedom for everyone.