[greedo]

I see this stated often, that humans are unpredictable drivers. What's the proof that automated systems will be predictable? They too will be dealing with a huge number of variables, and trying to interpret things like intent etc.

[lb1lf]

Yes, automated systems will also do unpredictable things - the point I was (poorly, as it were) trying to make was that the mix of autopilots and humans are likely to create new problems; without being able to dig it out now, I remember a study which found that humans had problems interacting with autonomous vehicles as the latter never fudged their way through traffic like a human would - say, approaching a traffic light, noting it turned yellow - then coming to a hard stop, whereas a human driver would likely just scoot through the intersection on yellow. Result - autonomous vehicles got rear-ended much more frequently than normal ones.

So - humans need to adapt to new behaviour from other vehicles on the road.

When ALL vehicles are L5, though, they (hopefully) will all obey the same rules and be able to communicate intent and negotiate who goes where when /prior/ to occupying the same space at the same time...

[greedo]

I think that unless a single form of AI is dictated for all vehicles, we can't safely make the assumption that autonomous vehicles will obey the same rules. Hell, we can't even get computer to obey the same rules now, either programmatically or at a physic level.

[lb1lf]

-That is a very valid point.

And, of course, they should all obey the same rules (well, traffic regulations being one, but also how they handle the unexpected - it would be a tough sell for a manufacturer who rather damaged the vehicle than other objects in the vicinity in the event of pending collision if other manufacturers didn't follow suit...

Autonomous Mad Max-style vehicles probably isn't a good thing. :/