I don't understand this argument. If you do something abusive in front of me ... I will do what a robot will do. I will stop. Because I don't want to crash. I might open the window and yell some profanities at you ... but I can do that anyway, regardless of who triggered the stop, whether it was me or the on-board computer.

If you're arguing that the on-board computer has better reflexes and therefore people will engage in even more demented behavior ... that penetration level would have to be 99%. If it's something like 90%, then 1 out of 10 times you do something that abusive will result in a crash and you'll die.

By the time penetration reaches 99%, you essentially have all cars with automation built in and it's likely that using that automation will be mandatory. Cars that aren't automated will be illegal on public roads exactly because of this problem.

It has already happened in some way: the overconfident TMAXes that don't think the laws of traffic apply to them.

Exactly the same as now: Common sense, self-protection, and the law.

Currently, people do all they can to avoid incidents, so if I do the things you mention, I will be safe to the extent that the driver sees me and can take evasive action. If what I do is detected too late to avoid a collision (such as crossing an active junction on a red light, or driving into the path of an oncoming car on a motorway) then it doesn't matter whether the driver is human or software if the event is detected too late for any response to be effective. Human or software, you're still reliant on brakes, traction, and structural stability. Those things don't miraculously improve when there's someone with faster reflexes at the wheel.

That's not to say it won't be safer when detection and response time is shorter, but it won't be so much safer as to reward stupidity.

There's been a subset of people who already behave this way for as long as I can recall, and it probably started soon after the invention of the automobile. Automation will greatly facilitate it.

I don't get this whole argument. We needn't be so worried about a few others taking small advantages when the overall state will be better for us.

By the time we have 99% market penetration of automated cars, we'll have had V2X standards for a decade or more. You probably would have a report of every vehicle nearby, but... At that point cars could just interleave at intersections, and the lights can just switch on when a human driven car shows up.

Also you should recognize that right now most of the time people run red lights or stuff like that they don't crash. If they did we wouldn't need red light cameras.

Here in Atlanta, the only rule during rush hour seems to be "What gets me to my destination quickest?" (And that's with us having what I consider fairly law-abiding drivers in comparison to some cities)

That is true now (and obviously more so in the first case), yet people still do it. If it wasn't being done, you could suggest that automation will not change the situation enough for people to start doing it, but as there already are people doing it, then that threshold has already been crossed, and it is implausible that it will not increase in frequency as the risk of doing it is decreased.

One might assume that if the majority of car do not speed, do not make illegal maneuvers, do not drunk drive, and do not get into accidents then law enforcement will severely reduce enforcement.

HA! Who will pay their salaries? They'll likely double-down on enforcement against "old school" drivers.

He's saying pedestrians will take advantage of cars auto-braking for them.

This seems to imply a giant sense of entitlement on the part of automobile passengers. If you want to go fast get in an airplane. Urban areas are shared with others. If a car has to stop every ten yards to accommodate pedestrians, then that implies a certain maximum possible speed, which is fine. "Jaywalking" is as fake a legal concept as "intellectual property".

If you're talking about the justification for governments making those rules in the first place, I could say the same about a rule saying pedestrians can cross in the middle of the street and cars have to yield - both are arbitrary rules, and should be judged based on their public policy outcomes.

The separation of traffic of different speeds has popped up in different countries and for different modes of transportation repeatedly, because the logic of the situation makes it make sense. In this case, a fast car loses a lot if its utility if it's limited by slower traffic that it's sharing the road with. The existence of car-only roads added value, and from the perspective of a society just introducing the technology, if that reduced the space available to pedestrians then so be it.

I think there's a good argument to be made that too much land has been allocated exclusively to motor transport, especially in city centers, but the existence of such dedicated thoroughfares makes total sense.

Otherwise why pay attention to traffic lights and street lanes? Just drive wherever you want - in fact why stop for pedestrians at all? Don't pedestrians have to accommodate cars too?

Projecting our typical pissed-off aggressive auto-commuter attitudes into the future is a mistake, and will come to be seen as a sort of mental illness. Well-adjusted robocar passengers will pay no attention to traffic, just as normal people today don't constantly bother air stewardesses about how long their flight is taking.

With cops freed up on traffic duty, they can start making examples of jaywalkers disrupting automated traffic.

In that world, could one safely run a red light? Sometimes yes, but there are limits even to the highest-performing sensors and servos. An intersection with large buildings on every corner would still be dangerous--radar and lasers can't see through walls or around corners, and even with perfect reaction times and brake control, a car doing 30mph has as a minimum stopping distance that would take it into the intersection.

So, I don't know that people would think that they are invincible. And traffic signals would still be enforced by law.

These are very powerful scooters, almost as fast as motorcycles but they don't require manual speed shifting, making. Usually drivers or those are reckless in cities like Paris

The premise is that self driving cars will and can react defensively. While someone driving home after a long day in the office might not.

So - yes, you can abuse human drivers, today. But the GP seems to think that it's far more risky now and will be ~trivial~ given good enough self driving cars.

Once upon a time, streets were for people. And then the automotive industry coined the term jaywalking...

[1] http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-...

Separating pedestrians from vehicles just makes sense.

Streets before 1900 still had sections for horses and sections for people. And you didn't need to tell people not to stroll down the horsey sections, they were covered in horseshit.

Doesn't look like Market Street in SF did (admittedly, 1906, not before 1900. But pretty close).

Skip to 1:46 and you can see it easily on the right hand side of the frame (too much darn traffic most of the time).

Pedestrians taking roads from motor vehicles is a modern example of the tragedy of the commons.

Boston is special. You know how sometimes pedestrians will cross on red and when they see a car and make eye contact with the driver they will turn their head the other way to make sure that the driver understands that they aren't looking in their direction and is forced to slow down? Yeah, Boston is the only place on the planet where I've seen actual drivers do the same thing. Unbelievable.

Although it would definitely be a habit that'll end up killing someone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbAI40dK0A

I hope so. If drvierless cars allow pedestrians to safely reclaim the streets that, as you point out, have marginalized them for so long, then that's fantastic.

I'd imagine new laws will be made to restrict pedestrians from egregiously abusing the self driving car.

Sadly, I expect that the fact that general purpose computers are a major component of self-driving cars will mean further legislative restriction on the use of general purpose computers. The idyllic vision of everyone riding in self-driving cars with "tamper-proof" and "trusted" firmware / processors is seductive (and arguably easier to build) than developing systems that are resilient in the face of malicious actors. Cars will end up being computers you ride in, running code that you legally prevented from examining or modifying. I hate the thought of it, but I can't see another scenario actually playing out.

I think the key is common sense good security engineering with strong verification of security models. We have had a few networked systems that can be target by malicious actors for a while now, like factory control systems; thankfully there's no big motivated enemy out there, but the risk will surely increase in the face of possibility of mass modification (overriding the manufacturer's firmware en masse), even accidental modification by the manufacturers.

Of course, if the user purposely modifies his own control systems he's going to be liable for any damage it causes.

Your faith in "common sense good security engineering" saving the day flies in the face of years of IT security reality. Computer security has been discussed, both formally and informally, since there have been networked computers (have a look at the "Ware Report", prepared by the RAND corporation for the DoD in 1967), yet the general state of IT security is horrendous.

The Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug and the subsequent software quality issues were reported by Phil Koopman make me think the auto industry isn't particularly qualified to take on security, reliability, or formal verification of their software. (Toyota might be a single example, but I find it hard to believe that software quality is generally any better across the industry. VW's software-based emissions defeat device makes me that much more suspicious of the industry as a whole.)

Attackers are going to be everyone from nation-states who want to surveil their citizenry to individuals who "game" the algorithms in other drivers' autonomous cars to allow themselves to move more quickly through traffic. I'm sure that staged accident insurance fraud, carjacking, hit-and-run, and other vehicle-related crimes will evolve in the face of the rise of autonomous vehicles.

I expect an outcry from law enforcement and "grass roots" groups to demand draconian measures to "lock down" autonomous vehicles. I expect that copyright maximalists and others who would benefit from restrictions on the use of general purpose computers will jump on the bandwagon too. I'm envisioning a future like Stallman's "Right to Read", but applied to our cars and any computers that interface with them.

It's called natural selection. Eventually they will meet each other.

There. Fixed it for you. (I commute by T and foot in Cambridge and Boston, by the way; and, yes, sounds flippant, but how awesome would it be for all streets to be "complete streets"?)