To Survive the Streets, Self-Driving Cars Have to Start Thinking Like Humans

Next time you're driving down the road or walking down the street, pause to consider how you read your surroundings. How you pay extra attention to the kid kicking a soccer ball around her front lawn and the slightly wobbly, nervous looking cyclist. You make these calls by drawing on a lifetime of social and cultural experience so ingrained you hardly need to think about it. But imagine you're an autonomous car trying to do the same thing, without that accumulated knowledge or the shared humanity that lets you read others' nuanced behavioral cues. Treating every pedestrian, cyclist, and vehicle as an obstacle to be avoided might keep you from hitting anything, but it could just as easily keep you from getting anywhere.