You're a backup driver, one of millions on line at any given time. If the A.I of the car you're assigned randomly to gets confused, you and several dozen other drivers take over control of the vehicle remotely.

Their control is averaged so if any one person tries to steer the car off a cliff his movements of the wheel and pedals will be counteracted by the group. This person would also never be allowed to drive again because the appropriateness of their driving would be recorded and guaged.

Now what's to stop everybody from getting together and driving the car off the cliff? This assumes some good human nature but there would be other problems with that plan. The people have no idea who the other 20 or so drivers are so there's no way to plan any bad driving.

And what's in it for the remote drivers? You get to take a virtual drive someplace you've never been before. Give people with no life who just sit at a computer all day something useful to do. You can play that video game for the umpteenth time or actually help some rich person driving through manhattan get a few Zs while being driven to their tennis lesson.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 16 2021

Twitch Plays Pokemon https://en.wikipedi...n_and_further_games
Crowd-sourced decision making resembled a random walk more than purposeful gameplay, but the crowd succeeded eventually. [sninctown, Sep 20 2021]

The new Tesla training center for AI runs at 1.8 exaflops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Dojo
[Voice, Sep 20 2021]

//Their control is averaged//

A child runs into the middle of the road. Half the drivers swerve left, the other half swerve right. It doesn't turn out well.
-- pertinax, Sep 16 2021


Hmmm. Ok, legit, so there'd have to be an accomodation for that.

But if it's basically a vote based on millions of samples per second, what are the chances of billions of bits of information from 20 different sources being split evenly down the middle?
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 16 2021


I'm pretty sure that, if I was rich, I wouldn't trust my safety to millions of anonymous drivers. At any given moment, how many of them are drunk? Consuming drugs? In a party making bets on how many cars they can throw down the bridge? Having sex (probably not many)? Generally not paying much attention to what they're doing?
-- PauloSargaco, Sep 16 2021


Like I said, they have no means to communicate with each other or know who the other drivers are. They also are carefully monitored and ranked. One mistake you never drive again.

Clearly addressed.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 16 2021


So if someone steps off the road just in front of your car and 10 people decide to swerve left and 10 people decide to swerve right, the system will take the average?
-- hippo, Sep 16 2021


No, the system will take the average of the measurement of the various wheel measurements in real time broken into tens of thousands of samples per second.

//But if it's basically a vote based on millions of samples per second, what are the chances of billions of bits of information from 20 different sources being split evenly down the middle?//

Not sure how many samples you could get, probably not a billion but close enough.

Enough samples that there's very little chance of it splitting evenly, in which case just have a random number generator pick one side.

Smart roads suggested was baked. Thanks a1.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 16 2021


//A child runs into the middle of the road. Half the drivers swerve left, the other half swerve right. It doesn't turn out well.//

They're all swerving. So if it does what the majority want it's going to be okay.

//Crowd-sourced decision making doesn't work in real-time, if at all//

Do you have evidence for that assertion?
-- Voice, Sep 18 2021


//what's in it for the remote drivers? You get to take a virtual drive someplace you've never been before. Give people with no life who just sit at a computer all day something useful to do.//

You'll be able to get a hundred thousand globally if you somehow gamify it and advertise heavily. And they won't be on much on average. Otherwise you're going to have to offer incentives. There's a reason it's hard to design interesting video games.
-- Voice, Sep 18 2021


Even if this isn't the best use for the new resource of millions of people online looking for something to do, that is a new thing.

If the human mind is power, never before have billions of these things been out there just looking for something to do.

Hmm. Gives me an idea.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 18 2021


//And what's in it for the remote drivers?//
Do it like Ender's Game: don't tell the players that it's real. Just a really realistic driving game.
-- neutrinos_shadow, Sep 19 2021


That could work. Make a driving game and insert sections of real world driving.
-- Voice, Sep 20 2021


There you go.

Might make the game a lot more interesting if you're driving a real car. Or at least lending 1/20th of the control to a moving car.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 21 2021



random, halfbakery