Autonomous Vehicles Are Coming
How the AV revolution will be engineered
When the first adumbrations of a new technology appear, thoughtful people try to discern the likely future implications. Today, a lot of thoughtful people are worrying about the impact of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Jobs will be lost. People will feel robbed of agency. What are the ethical implications of software making life-or-death decisions?
While such weighty questions do deserve some thought, they are in fact completely irrelevant to the adoption of AVs.
We humans are evolved to seek the path of least resistance because for 98% of our evolutionary history that was the strategy that would most likely aid survival. Expending excess energy on an unnecessary task burned calories that could be needed for moments of exigency. So we are adapted to do as little as possible, both physically and mentally. This is why today, surrounded by an excess of calories and a plethora of entertainments, most of us are fat and indolent and our heads are filled with ephemeral trivia. Furthermore, we have a built-in bias to keep doing whatever is familiar because that’s generally the easiest thing to do.
So how are people going to be persuaded to adopt AVs?
The Dunning-Kruger effect means that 99% of drivers hugely over-estimate their…