Mary Branscombe: I always remember the story of investors getting stuck in a Google self driving car in mountain view for maybe 45 minutes because it was programmed to follow the rules on merging and no one would let it into the road

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I maintain that Boston drivers aren’t bad, they’re spiteful.

they're very skilled and, more than that, extremely creative

other drivers will ask "is that a lane" and look to lane markings or some such. Boston drivers will ask "COULD that be a lane" and answer "yes, fuck your lane markings"

Other drivers: i should use my turn signals to communicate where i intend to go Boston drivers: you FOOL, all warfare is based on deception

*BLINK* Once is happenstance. *BLINK* Twice is coincidence. *BLINK* Three times is enemy action!

All driving is war by other means Now watch closely as i brake check this semi truck

when I drove a lot I developed an elaborate theory of how to manipulate other drivers to minimize my travel time and risk of citation based on the principles of ninjutsu. if only I was kidding about this. it was also an important part of the genesis of the ideas behind my company.

Wait really? Im so curious, tell me more

well ok so first: cops are looking for outliers, so you always want to be the second slowest car on the road. therefore, you should find a car that wants to go fast and goad them into going faster and faster trying to pass you, so you can always be slightly slower than them

in order to do this you have to know what those other drivers want, which ones are desperate to pass you and can be goaded into accelerating ever faster even when that serves them no real purpose; thinking about that is how I realized that driving was primarily a theory of mind task

you can really figure out, with other drivers, what their theory of the road is. maybe they're just blasting through, but more often they have some cockamamie theory like "if I get in front of the cars I will get there sooner" or "if I have a car behind me cops can't see me"; it is obvious

anyhow what I realized is that if THAT is obvious we're really doing a LOT of theory of mind reasoning while driving, and the more I looked at it the more I realized that MOST of driving was that kind of thinking, which subsequently led to pondering how self-driving cars couldn't do that at ALL

I always remember the story of investors getting stuck in a Google self driving car in mountain view for maybe 45 minutes because it was programmed to follow the rules on merging and no one would let it into the road

they still can't handle unprotected lefts, in general. they route around them.

I'm reminded of @sbisson.com having a school project to use a light sensor on a robot and building one that found the darkest corner to hide in.

Gothbot.

frankly it's hard to blame them for this as I, a human, tend to route around them too. other people are too untrustworthy and keep trying to murder me

How did Mike Judge not make this into an entire Silicon Valley episode?

Waymo just ungated its service so anyone in San Francisco can use it to go anywhere in the city. It is a much better option than using a ride-sharing service with some out-of-town driver who doesn’t know how to drive in the city.

I'll remember that the next time I hear about one blocking emergency service vehicles or dragging pedestrians

These stories are both with respect to Cruise which currently does not offer service in San Francisco. Even then, how many people talk about the human driver who first hit the pedestrian, throwing her in front of the Cruise. A human driver recently plowed into a bus stop in S.F. killing 3 people.

'This could have happened to any of us': SF grieves loss of family in crashwww.sfgate.com San Francisco is mourning the tragic loss of a family killed waiting for the bus in West Portal.

I apologise for mixing up the dangerous things done by one self driving car company with the dangerous things done by another self driving car company

Waymos do that shit too.

Not the pedestrian dragging, but certainly driving into emergency situations.

Human drivers kill about two people a month in San Francisco. Oh look: "The analysis suggests that accidents of vehicles equipped with Advanced Driving Systems generally have a lower chance of occurring than Human-Driven Vehicles in most of the similar accident scenarios."

A matched case-control analysis of autonomous vs human-driven vehicle accidents - Nature Communicationswww.nature.com Through a matched case-control analysis this study reveals accident risk disparities between autonomous and human-driven vehicles. It suggests that accidents of vehicles equipped with Advanced Driving...

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