But for all their fancy sensors and intricate data-crunching abilities, even the most cutting-edge cars lack something that (almost) every 16-year-old with a learner's permit has: social awareness. While autonomous technologies have improved substantially, they still ultimately view the drivers around them as obstacles made up of ones and zeros, rather than human beings with specific intentions, motivations, and personalities. But recently a team led by researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has been exploring whether self-driving cars can be programmed to classify the social personalities of other drivers, so that they can better predict what different cars will do -- and, therefore, be able to drive more safely among them. In a new paper, the scientists integrated tools from social psychology to classify driving behavior with respect to how selfish or selfless a particular driver is. Specifically, they used something called social value orientation (SVO), which represents the degree to which someone is selfish ("egoistic") versus altruistic or cooperative ("prosocial").

Self-driving cars could soon be able to classify you as a selfish or altruistic driver. While this might bruise some egos, researchers from MIT CSAIL claim that this will make autonomous vehicles (AVs) much safer when driving alongside humans. Predicting how humans might behave, and adjusting an algorithm's reasoning based on how selfish or selfless their behavior might be, could dramatically reduce accidents between AI-enabled vehicles and humans. Properly integrating AI technology with the complicated and nuanced world of human behavior is a huge barrier to overcome, especially in applications that can make a difference between life or death. Apart from making self-driving cars safe enough for our streets, teaching AI how to comprehend the less quantifiable parts of life could give AI the ability to help humans in roles it previously could not handle, and could advance AI applications in general.

In March 2004, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) organized a special Grand Challenge event to test out the promise -- or lack thereof -- of current-generation self-driving cars. Entrants from the world's top A.I. labs competed for a $1 million prize; their custom-built vehicles trying their best to autonomously navigate a 142-mile route through California's Mojave Desert. The "winning" team managed to travel just 7.4 miles in several hours before shuddering to a halt. A decade-and-a-half, a whole lot has changed. Self-driving cars have successfully driven hundreds of thousands of miles on actual roads.

But for all their fancy sensors and intricate data-crunching abilities, even the most cutting-edge cars lack something that (almost) every 16-year-old with a learner's permit has: social awareness. While autonomous technologies have improved substantially, they still ultimately view the drivers around them as obstacles made up of ones and zeros, rather than human beings with specific intentions, motivations, and personalities. But recently a team led by researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has been exploring whether self-driving cars can be programmed to classify the social personalities of other drivers, so that they can better predict what different cars will do -- and, therefore, be able to drive more safely among them. In a new paper, the scientists integrated tools from social psychology to classify driving behavior with respect to how selfish or selfless a particular driver is. Specifically, they used something called social value orientation (SVO), which represents the degree to which someone is selfish ("egoistic") versus altruistic or cooperative ("prosocial").

Our personalities impact almost everything we do, from the career path we choose to the way we interact with others to how we spend our free time. But what about the way we drive--could personality be used to predict whether a driver will cut someone off, speed, or, say, zoom through a yellow light instead of braking? There must be something to the idea that those of us who are more mild-mannered are likely to drive a little differently than the more assertive among us. At least, that's what a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is betting on. "Working with and around humans means figuring out their intentions to better understand their behavior," said graduate student Wilko Schwarting, lead author on the paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "People's tendencies to be collaborative or competitive often spills over into how they behave as drivers.