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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.
"Thank you" doesn't cost you a dime, there is absolutely no drawback at all whatsoever to say "thank you".
I fail to see the problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The article didn't indicate it was a problem, just that they thought they should react to it somehow (you're welcome!).
I see a lot of potential to mine cute robot voices and mannerisms from movies, like Johnny Five I think would make a good pizza delivery personality. Or that luggage inspection bot from the Star Tours ride at Disney.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just seems polite.
When true AI emerges, I won't be one of the ones out there claiming they are "just machines."
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
There's also breeding, which ingrains conditioned reflexes for interacting with people that carry over to inanimate objects.
If I stumble into a chair in a dark room, I automatically say "excuse me," not because I think the chair has *feelings*, but because the words come out of me before I have consciously processed the event. That rapidity is no accident: I was trained to say "excuse me" quickly enough that a *person* I bumped into wouldn't have processed the event either. This forestalls any misunderstanding on their part.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
It says there was someone in the car. Perhaps they were thanking the person in the car?
During the testing phase, an engineer and a driver will be in the car -- but the windows will be heavily tinted so customers can't see them. And both have been instructed not to interact with people at all. Domino's wants to see how well customers deal with coming out and getting their own pie from what is, basically, a pizza ATM built into the car.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact