Apparently, people mess with autonomous cars simply because they're autonomous. It's hard to say whether that's just the novelty factor or something likely to persist.
I can easily imagine some bored teenagers (can even imagine a certain version of younger me doing it) blocking an empty autonomous vehicle from leaving a parking space just for kicks. I suppose coaxing other empty ones into a ditch or waterway isn't too much of a stretch either if the cars are owned by some mega-corp and become some kind of cheap public good like shopping trolleys.
As soon as it becomes a robot, a lot of the social pressure to be a good person falls away. Less so if there are people inside, but I can see empty autonomous cars being given a pretty hard time just for kicks.
As soon as it becomes a robot, a lot of the social pressure to be a good person falls away. Less so if there are people inside, but I can see empty autonomous cars being given a pretty hard time just for kicks.