The Problem With Autonomous Cars That No One’s Talking About
Autonomous cars need to learn how to drive like a local
By Jasper Dekker
On a recent research trip, I found myself in the back of a taxi in New Delhi, amid a dizzying mix of car horns and exhaust. What initially seemed like complete chaos — a flurry of cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, and the occasional cow — turned out to be a flow of traffic where everyone works together to keep everything moving. People gave each other just enough space to merge into lanes or roundabouts without stopping. This is considered rude in the West as we’re taught to wait for those who have the right of way, but it’s perfectly normal in India.
So I began to wonder: How would a California-trained autonomous vehicle handle this traffic culture? Beyond the official rules of the road, social and cultural norms define the way we actually drive, and how we treat each other on the road. This behavior culminates to create a traffic culture that is very specific to each place. Without knowledge of the traffic culture it finds itself in, an AV would be paralyzed. If engineers and designers fail to find a way to help AI understand different traffic cultures, we run the risk of excluding a large part of the planet’s population from a new frontier in transportation.
