There was a motor race in Buenos Aires the other day. Just two cars, neither of them with a driver. The ‘Roborace’ was for electric driverless cars. One was fine, the other driver(less) crashed early on.

But this crash wasn’t because the cameras broke or the sensors failed or some technical glitch. The car crashed because, according to the scientists, it ‘lost its temper’. Had a tantrum. Got too aggressive, overly competitive and lost it on a bend, hitting the barrier at speed.

I mean, ‘driverless car crashes’ is no big headline, no major news item, the more they test them the more crashes they have. Its new technology, a paradigm shift, there’s much to learn.

But its why this particular car crashed that is rather interesting. And that was because it was basically too human. Too aggressive. Too much (digital) testosterone. Angry. That driverless was me!!!!

They take two identical cars, same engines, bodies, lasers, cameras, everything. But the different teams program the softwear themselves. And thus they each use reactive algorithms to emulate the ‘perfect’ driver’s response. These cars are programmed to take the racing line, when to accelerate to best advantage, when to use ‘drift’, all kinds of Formula Onery that is known. But then you need an ‘edge’. An advantage. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a race, just a procession. Bit like Formula 1 before Mercedes took it over completely. And that ‘advantage’ is when to push a little harder, when to just go for the lower percentage shot, to take a risk. Calculated risk, of course. Everything they do is fucking calculated, they’re computers. And this car crashed because they’d programmed it to be a little too human. It saw its chance, got pissed off with the other driver(less) and pushed a touch too hard.

The computer must have known that at such a speed on such a bend (think ‘bionic man with that heads-up, green digital display shit’) would just know that the centripetal forces in conjunction with the co-efficient of friction from the tyres, coupled with the added acceleration (or whateverrrrrr) would cause a problem. But ‘he’ did it anyway. (I have a convention; driverless cars are ‘he’, robots wot do cleaning are ‘she’. I see nothing paternalistic or chauvinistic in that at all.) Because ‘he’ was overly aggressive.

You know when you take out an ISA or a pension and they ask you your ‘risk exposure’? I want that with driverless cars, when they arrive. You want ‘the old lady with a hat’ model (20mph all the way, cautious, kind and considerate), or the ‘Andy’ version (shouts incessantly, always pushing, never fast enough, overtakes on the inside, ignores amber-ish lights…) that’ll get you there much more quickly, but you might die on the way.

Ahhhhh, changing world.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx