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Comment by galdosdi | Hacker News Reader

Actually, it may be an instance of a "tragedy of the commons" but I think the most strategically optimal move for a state when there are 49 others is to ban it and let "sucker" states do the testing, and then immediately legalize it as soon as it shows promise.

Just like how I never upgrade to a new software version right away, letting the other "suckers" test it in production for me, creating value for me at their expense with no repercussions whatsoever, since the delay is very small.

Another strategically effective move might be to charge corporations an appropriate fee to capture back the value of the data they are collecting by experimenting on public roads. Given how valuable driverless technology could be, the fees could be large.

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I don't believe this because whilst there are costs for the state of allowing self-driving cars, there are also massive upsides. The CompSci jobs that are involved in self-driving cars are highly sought after and by enticing testing of these cars Arizona is also likely bringing in high value tech jobs that would normally go to somewhere like silicon valley. Once they've established a center of excellence for that skill set it becomes self sustaining too. So you'll probably find that years after every state has self-driving cars Arizona still have more of those jobs.

For testing self driving cars on real streets though there's not really a big need for local developers if the company is setup well at all it can do it 99% remotely with just a barebones support staff onsite for installing the new software and sorting out integration issues which can also be done at their headquarters on engineering samples on their test tracks.

I had thought it was a brilliant move by Arizona. They were trying to be for autonomous vehicles like what Detroit was for cars back in the day, or Boston is now for biotech, or New York for finance.

But I never thought through: which jobs are moving to Arizona? Autonomous vehicle production and maintenance? LIDAR and other sensor R&D? AI software development? Or is it just the test driver and the cars get developed elsewhere?

It's a gamble to make the state look attractive for R&D shops/departments to either relocate or setup permanent testing sites. Automakers already use the desert conditions to test cars, so this is just an extension.

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