Programming the driverless car for India

In Google’s California campus, the spooky spectacle of driverless cars moving quietly on the road is apparently common. Now Google is letting these cars roam the city streets, and, according to a recent article in the New York Times by Matt Richtel and Conor Dougherty, the cars are not enjoying sharing the road with human drivers.

The article describes how, seeing a pedestrian at a zebra crossing, a self-driving car slowed down, but the car behind it didn’t. The result? The pedestrian was unharmed, but the Google car ‘was hit from behind by a human-driven sedan’.

I smiled. Then, as I read what Donald Norman, an expert on autonomous vehicles, had to say, I chortled aloud: “They (driverless cars) have to learn to be aggressive in the right amount, and the right amount depends on the culture.”

How appropriate it would be for the car to be trained in India, I thought, affectionately reflecting upon our famous driving culture. I imagine being tasked to travel in the driverless car in Chennai (with the ability to take over control at my whim) to figure out what changes are needed in the car’s programming to inculcate an appropriate sense of aggressiveness in it.

I get into the car and input my destination into the map. The car reverses silently into my colony road. When we reach the main road, instead of turning right, the car switches on its indicator and waits. Immediately the driver behind us blares his car’s horn and gesticulates ‘Move, idiot!’ with his arm.

I realize the car is programmed not to move until it can sense enough empty space, probably ‘two car-lengths’, in front of it. But Annanagar’s 4^th Main Road has not seen two car-lengths of empty space since 1984! So I take over the controls and move forward slowly. Vehicles on the main road quickly accelerate to block me but I continue to move, inch my inch. Soon I’m blocking one lane (but some two-wheelers simply manoeuvre around my car and continue on their way behind me). I wait until I spot a car with three feet of empty space in front of it. I quickly move into this (forcing the car to stop), wait for a similar gap on the opposite side and make a quick right turn.

I hand back control to the car. A car on the left moves in front of us. Instead of sounding its horn and accelerating, my car slows down… silently. In disgust I press the horn but it’s too late. Later when my car slows down within our lane instead of moving into the empty lane on the left, I turn the wheel myself. And when it tries to stop at a zebra crossing, I pre-emptively press the accelerator.

Within 30 minutes I know what re-programming Google needs to do in the car.

1.      The car should not reverse silently. Reversing must be accompanied by loud music that repeats in five-second loops.

2.      For the Google car to move on Indian roads, the setting for safe-gap to move into needs to be changed from two car-lengths to two feet.

3.      The instruction to stick-to-your-lane has to be removed. The car needs to understand that lane markings, if present, are only for fun. In fact, the luxury version of the car (targeting Bollywood stars for example) can even be programmed to use the sidewalk as an additional lane when needed.

4.      Similarly the instruction to stop at a zebra crossing for pedestrians needs to go. Such crossings are opportunities for a friendly game between pedestrian and vehicle. When the walker shows courage and resolve (demonstrated by walking firmly forwards, ignoring the traffic), the car should respectfully slow down. But should the walker hesitate, the car should accelerate.

5.      In fact, in such situations – approaching a zebra crossing, another car trying to squeeze in front, signal ahead turning red and policeman signally ‘stop’ – the instruction slow down can be replaced with accelerate.

6.      The current horn instruction, sound the horn in an emergency, is stupid. The car should be programmed to sound the horn generously, for five seconds each time: (a) when a motorist on the right (or left) tries to get in front; (b) before, during and after moving into the lane of the motorist on the right (or left); (c) when a pedestrian tries to cross the road; (d) when a pedestrian walks quietly on the sidewalk; (e) ten seconds before the light turns green while waiting at a signal; and (f) every hundred metres, if none of (a) to (e) has happened, to stay in practice.

7.      To make everyone feel at home, the car should bring down the window and eject a spurt of red liquid once every kilometre.

I could share other, finer pearls of advice – like how to read the competiveness of another driver in their eyes, what to say when your side-view mirror is ripped off and how to adjust your driving when competing with a taxi driver – but there is no point. A computer will never understand such nuances.