Autonomous Vehicles are a collection action problem

Written with Claude

The challenges facing the adoption of autonomous vehicles are largely self-inflicted. Rather than redesigning our transportation infrastructure and systems around the capabilities of autonomous vehicles, we have insisted on maximum backward compatibility with the existing system centered around human drivers. This insistence on backward compatibility is severely hampering the progress and adoption of autonomous vehicles.

If we had taken the same approach when automobiles were first introduced and insisted on maximum compatibility with horse-drawn carriages, the transition to cars would have been far more difficult and taken much longer. Instead, we redesigned our roads, built gas stations and repair shops, implemented new traffic laws, and made many other changes to accommodate and optimize the automobile. All of this required collective action and investment, but it paid off tremendously in the long run with vastly more efficient transportation.

With autonomous vehicles, we have not been willing to make the same types of investments and changes. We expect autonomous vehicles to seamlessly integrate into a system built around human drivers, rather than building a new system optimized for the unique capabilities of autonomous vehicles. This means autonomous vehicles have to be designed to handle all the complexity and unpredictability of human drivers, which is an extremely difficult problem that slows progress.

If we redesigned our roads, traffic systems, and infrastructure with autonomous vehicles in mind, they could operate much more efficiently. We could have dedicated lanes for autonomous vehicles, smarter traffic management systems, and roads designed for optimal autonomous vehicle functionality. New business models like autonomous vehicle subscription services and on-demand autonomous shuttles could also emerge.

But instead, we remain stuck in a system designed for the limited capabilities of human drivers and vehicles from over a century ago. The challenges of building autonomous vehicles to handle this outdated system are enormous, and it is seriously delaying their mass adoption. Overcoming this failure of collective action to optimize for autonomous vehicles may prove critical to achieving their potential benefits. With a fresh approach to transportation infrastructure tailored around autonomy, autonomous vehicles could transform mobility. But insisting on backward compatibility with human drivers threatens to hold the technology back indefinitely.