I tried to flag a taxi in downtown Shanghai for 45 minutes and finally gave into the broken English speaking motorcycle taxi who had been circling the block every five minutes.

Riding bitch through Hangpu to Pudong with a laptop in one arm while lane splitting with aggressive (and otherwise bad drivers) all around was a rather exciting experience.

Even with a skilled pilot, the adrenaline rush was similar to my first time tandem skydiving.

> Even with a skilled pilot, the adrenaline rush was similar to my first time tandem skydiving.

following lines from neal-stephenson's cryptonomicon come to mind:

      "like Disneyland with the safety locks taken off"

Your driver must be a real level 4 driver.

I like this video of traffic in Hyderabad, India. Whole different kind of logic applies there: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjG_S8XJM4

As we get to 100% autonomy, traffic will probably look like this but 100x faster and safer.

Something you often see in simulation. But I wounded if these simulations ever use different decision engines and criteria for different vehicles. The different manufacturers are going to produce their own software (some at least) and not treat an encounter the same way. Are we going to have race conditions or "database" lock-like situations (not sure what to call it), as cars try to interpret each others behaviour?

This example, and most simulations, seem to use an algorithm which is very close to "if there is space for me to drive, drive".

In the medium term, I expect self driving cars will instead start to communicate with each other to find a better approximation of optional traffic flow (by finding the solution that is best for the negotiating vehicles). This has several competitive advantages over the simple algorithm: it enhances safety for participating vehicles by removing prediction errors, and if you can negotiate with the other car instead of guessing what it will do you can do much tighter manoeuvers with smaller seaters margins. And of course better traffic flow makes driving more pleasant, which is good for car sales. Given all those market forces I think it's very likely to happen.

In the medium term I agree, but there are som major standards issues and negotiations, like common implementation against the law in several major markets, to work out first, I think.

So beautiful to watch. Order in chaos

I could imagine the robot car having an easier time in a place with minimal expectation to obey traffic rules. It simply becomes an entirely self-serving entity solving a constraint maximization problem. Namely, get from A to B, don't hit anything, don't get hit.

There is quite complex social interaction going on road. Rules and commands are communicated to participants and there are only seconds to understand them and obey

If a machine is able to drive in Bangalore, I'll presume that Artificial General Intelligence has dawned upon us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMwJD9NG6NQ

> "If you've ever been to those countries, the first thing you notice as a westerner is that the streets are chaos, traffic rules are barely obeyed, and aggressiveness is required to get anywhere."

I'm going to get down voted for this, but it has to be said.

The whole "well it couldn't drive in X country" scenario is ridiculous. Driving in unruly, chaotic, unregulated environments is NOT a problem for self driving cars to solve.

That type of driving environment certainly IS a problem, but one that has already been solved by good governance, including laws, rules, and regulations for improving safety of traffic. Countries like the United States, among others, have developed a set of rules and regulations that make self driving cars possible within their domain. It's foolhardy to assume self driving cars can, or should, work outside of that domain.

If you're solution to the problem is to not solve it under the constraints offered, then you're not really solving it. Someone could easily use your argument to say we shouldn't have self driving cars in the US either when we can just use automated trains.

> "If you're solution to the problem is to not solve it under the constraints offered, then you're not really solving it."

That is of course, unless, you DO solve it under other constraints. Sure, you haven't solved X problem with Y solution, but you've still solved X problem. Self driving cars may not be the solution to ALL kinds of traffic problems, but it turns out, they don't have to be.

I partly agree with you but I feel population density is also a major contributing factor here.

From my experience in my home country, the only rule of the road there is the survival of the strong. I would imagine that designing algorithms that follow only one rule should actually be much easier. An unpleasant and dangerous environment like this would actually benefit much more from self-driving technology.