You’ve probably heard that self-driving cars are safer than their human-guided equivalents (as a general rule, at least). But what if you have a hard time wrapping your head around how that concept works in practice? Never fear: developers Mark Backler and Peter Cardwell-Gardner have posted a web game, Error-Prone, that teaches you about the perils of overcrowded roads and the virtues of autonomous vehicles. You’re supposed to take control of one of the closely-packed cars circling in a loop, but doing so almost guarantees that you’ll either slow everyone down or cause an accident. It’s much like WarGames’ nuclear battle, where the only way to win is not to play — the sooner you realize that the computer is better at driving than you are, the sooner traffic calms down.
This is an extreme simplification of the issue, to be sure. It doesn’t address the snarls that come with complex roadways, or the sheer pleasure of driving your car on a winding back road. Nonetheless, it’s a good illustration of the safety and speed advantages that come with letting robotics handle your daily commute.
Filed under:
Gaming, Transportation, Internet
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Via:
Wired
Source:
Error-Prone
Tags: autonomous, car, error-prone, games, gaming, internet, self-driving, self-drivingcar, vehicle