The Halting problem : Video analysis of self-driving cars in traffic

• Using publicly uploaded videos of the Waymo and Tesla FSD self-driving cars, this paper documents how self-driving vehicles still struggle with some basics of road interaction. To drive safely self-driving cars need to interact in traffic with other road users. Yet traffic is a complex, long established social domain. We focus on one core element of road interaction: when road users yield for each other. Yielding – such as by slowing down for others in traffic – involves communication between different road users to decide who will ‘go’ and who will ‘yield’. Videos of the Waymo and Tesla FSD self-driving cars show how these systems fail to both yield for others, as well as failing to go when yielded to. In discussion, we explore how these ‘problems’ illustrate both the complexity of designing for road interaction, but also how the space of physical machine/human social interactions more broadly can be designed for.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Mänsklig interaktion med IKT (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Human Aspects of ICT (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Människa-datorinteraktion (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Human Computer Interaction (hsv//eng)

Keyword

data- och systemvetenskap

Computer and Systems Sciences

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)