[LINK] Spells Against Autonomy

[Jim Birch]

Andy Farkas wrote:

"even a person wearing a t-shirt with a STOP sign on it can affect
> the navigational capabilities of autonomous cars"
>

A recently paper in the Journal of Planning Education and Research,
Pedestrians, Autonomous Vehicles, and Cities by Adam Millard-Ball, makes an
interesting point about driverless cars using game theory.

Currently, pedestrians play a game of chicken with cars that includes
severe personal injury in the trade-offs. Pedestrians push drivers to slow
down for them and drivers push back with near-misses and hits. This creates
norms over time.

We can be reasonably sure that driverless cars won’t have the onboard
algorithms to take the outa-my-way-scum approach to pedestrians. This
shifts the right-of-way game in favour of pedestrians. In a mixed
environment, human drivers would be forced toward the same norms.

This could result in cities that are more pedestrian-oriented, which is
arguably a good thing. It could also make vehicle travel slower and perhaps
even unworkable with some imperious pedestrian populations. It might
eventually result in jaywalking laws being dusted off and revamped.

Jim (xposted)