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Comment by trgn | Hacker News Reader

> the AI will make deadly mistakes that no human would make

you'd be surprised what kind of mistakes humans make.

Anyway, snarky comment aside. The biggest reason for optimism is that a world full of AI cars will remove the reptile-brained jostling for position that's 90% the cause of all crashes today, and that it will overall _slow down_ traffic. Slower, calm, tepid moving traffic, a bunch of electric golfcarts puttering around the city. That's a future of AI-only traffic worth signing up for.

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It's amazing how many people seem to not see further up the road than the cars directly in front of them. Even when driving tall SUVs or trucks.

My favorite scenario is when someone super impatient pulls around (often suddenly without signaling) a car not noticing:

* The car in front of them is actually going the same speed as the car in front of them

* The lane they were all in is actually going faster than the lane they just pulled into

* Everyone is about to pass a slow person up ahead in the newly selected lane

Person predictably hits the gas to race ahead only to get stuck behind the slow car while the cars they thought they were passing proceed ahead in the lane they just left.

Sometimes frustration and increasingly eratic behavior ensues.

Never gets old :D

This is a genius reply. I 100% agree intellectually as well as from personal experience. I have a British co-worker. When he goes home for the holidays, he is always terrified of how fast people drive on two lane countryside roads with sharp turns and limited visibility. Another Swiss co-worker said the same about snowy local roads in the mountains. Locals drive very fast. As soon as AV is trained on those roads, it will drive much slower, and probably safer.

Why would you think people would drive slower with AV?

They will drive even faster thinking their AI will protect them.

I know this because Tesla has “ludicrous mode” and all other EV manufacturers are bragging about their insane 0-60 and 0-100 mph times, and owners love to show off.

> Why would you think people would drive slower with AV?

Because the autonomous vehicle will be autonomous.

True. I did a bad job explaining myself. What do you think the consequence will be if AV drives too slowly for the impatient?

If it’s truly AV they probably won’t care because they’ll be watching Fast and Furious on the touchscreen.

Why would traffic actually be slower? Have you driven much in busy cities? Usually in California for example, when traffic conditions allow such, the actual advice given in things like drivers ed is to keep with the flow of traffic including in situations like freeway driving where traffic might be going much faster than the posted speed limit. Certainly ai might drive slower in places flagged as actually necessitating it, but if anything I'd think the advantage of a fleet of ai drivers is that cars could go even faster than before because suddenly there's nobody stubbornly slowing a lane down unnecessarily out of either panic or simply obstinance that they're in the right because they're going the posted speed limit.

> the actual advice given in things like drivers ed is to keep with the flow of traffic including in situations like freeway driving where traffic might be going much faster than the posted speed limit.

That's awful advice. It's something that feels right, but in reality only exaggerates the push-pull accordion effect of too fast, too heavy traffic.

It’s actually the law to go the speed of traffic.

an awful law when the speed of traffic is too high for conditions.

One major gripe I have with driving in California is no clear traffic law requiring folks to move over when getting passed on the right.

It's not the speed. It's the speed difference as cars end up weaving between lanes in traffic because slower vehicles sit in the passing lane(s).

Plus it will be MUCH safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

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