Law of Self-Driving

Primordial Soup may be the place of the origin of life on Earth. Similarly, Liquid Networks spark innovation better because of the balance of chaos & control. Soon or later, self-driving cars will fundamentally change the way of life. The question is how to accelerate the commercialization of self-driving cars. A primordial soup of self-driving, maybe 🙏.

Taichung City Council, Taiwan

Controls of chaos

Pathetic dot theory suggests 4 major forces to control life: Law, Norms, Market, and Architecture, where:

1. Law is instituted & enforced by the government.
2. Norms are the social conventions supported by the community.
3. Market is driven by supply & demand.
4. Architecture is the current technical constraints

While our pathetic life may subject to the status quo of our predecessors, we may innovate to reshape them for the better good, but how 🤔?

Code v2: 4 constraints regulate the pathetic dot.

Dynamic balance of control

On Aug 19, 2022, the UK government published a new plan backed by £100M, aiming to roll out self-driving cars from 2025, create 38k new jobs & a £42B industry. Which includes a new safety ambition to ensure self-driving cars are as safe as a competent & careful human driver. And, the new legislation will make the manufacturer liable instead of the driver during self-driving.

Kudos to the UK government for leading self-driving commercialization. Two key success factors may be:

1. The law should set up the right level of control and structure to minimize the total loss of state & private expropriations. Therefore, the innovators can not only make self-driving better collectively to avoid the pitfalls of Tragedy of the Commons. But also, the playing field is levered to enable more to compete on pushing the boundary in all angles.
2. The law should also be flexible enough to adapt to the changes quickly. As new technologies & market dynamics unfold, the law should be renewed timely to lead new development forward instead of limiting & dragging the innovations.

Institutional Possibilities Frontier (IPF), Djankov et al. 2003

Better superhuman drivers

On Aug 29, 2022, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego takes a ride around downtown in a Waymo self-driving car. And just two months ago, GM Cruise starts the 1st public beta of robotaxi in San Francisco. We are definitely not there yet. But as a glimpse of lights, such examples are piling up. Sooner or later, self-driving cars will be safer than most human drivers. So, how may the law help to build a self-driving car a better superhuman? My 2 cents:

1. A driving journey metadata standard & a mandatory recording black-box will make accident root cause easier & more objective.
2. The learning of all accidents should be common knowledge for the common good. For example, all makers should be able to use them to validate their self-driving systems to prevent similar problems.

Autonomous vehicles: a potential game changer for urban mobility, UITP

Full Disclosure

The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my company. They are mostly extrapolations from public information. I don’t have insider knowledge of those companies, nor a whatever expert. Up to you to take it with a grain of salt or two 😉.