Apparently, People Say 'Thank You' To Self-Driving Pizza Delivery Vehicles (technologyreview.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last summer, Ford worked with Domino's Pizza on a test in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where it delivered pizza to randomly chosen customers in a self-driving Ford Fusion hybrid. An operator was inside the car, and a regular human-driven car trailed behind, videotaping the drive. Customers had to approach the car and enter a number on a touch screen on the side of the vehicle to get their pizza. Speaking at CES, the annual consumer electronics show, in Las Vegas this week, Jim Farley, Ford's executive vice president, acknowledged that the idea sounds silly, "but we learned so freaking much," he said. Apparently, most people say "thank you" to the car after getting their pizza.

Comments

Propably figured someone was monitoring ....

[QuietLagoon]

If one of those cars delivered pizza to me, I'd say thank you also. I would assume that the transaction is being monitored by a human somewhere, so why not be polite? I'd want the car to be polite to me as well.

This is tit-for-tat run amok.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

One of the most difficult challenge for the Theory of Evolution is the emergence of altruism. (Eye? easily explained, if find someone claiming evolution can no explain eye or flagellum motor you just found a creationist).

How can evolution, that pits individuals of the species one against another foster anything other than selfishness? The seminal breakthrough came in 1970s and 1980s when it became possible to simulate in a computer model interactions. The well known iterated prisoner's dilemma problem, the tournament of strategies found nice strategies at the correct level of pay off, can create conditions that foster altruism. The most famous and most successful strategy was tit-for-tat (Dont be the first one to be nasty, always be nasty to nasty people and always be nice to nice people, don't be jealous when falling behind in point count, forgive historical slights instantly)

But tit-for-tat is not a evolutionarily stable strategy. Once it takes hold and drives out all the nasty people, it is no different from "always be nice" strategy. Without punishment and reprisals, mutant nasty players gain an advantage. That is what is happening here, in the West people are so used to being nice to one another, they are nice to even machines.