Ah, okay, so it would be materially different, then, from a company being able to deliver a value-to-the-business individualised experience on its incoming telephone network because it owns that network, whereas in the example of cars they don't own the 'network' (i.e., the roads) and therefore can't prejudice the experience of those using the network. Is that at all close to the mark?
Look at it this way: You've got a system of interconnected players. There's "you", "other drivers on the same autonomous network", "other drivers on different autonomous networks", "other drivers not on autonomous networks", "life safety vehicles", "local jurisdiction", "state jurisdiction", "national jurisdiction," etc. The situation you're describing covers "you" and "other drivers on the same autonomous network." There are lots of players that aren't covered. They all have "rights" governed by their social contract and actual contracts through citizenship, licensure, etc. Let's come up with some players: - Adam is Google SelfDrive Carbon (cheap) - Bob is Google SelfDrive Diamond (expensive) - Charlie is Delphi Autocruise (untiered) - Dave is in a '77 Nova - Elliott is a cop - Fred is a long-haul trucker - Google is a company too smart to get themselves in this mess, but bear with me. Adam is going to work. Bob is also going to work, but Bob has the added advantage of fucking Adam over whenever he feels like it. This is likely to create seething resentment of Google by Adam, but we'll disregard that for a moment. So Bob is bombing down the interstate and Google tells Adam's car to pull over out of Bob's way. Adam is going to cut in front of Charlie, if he can. Charlie's car has accident avoidance. But is Google going to let Adam's car drive aggressively enough to risk an incident? If it can be proved that they did, Google can be sued by Delphi. Charlie moves over and gets in front of Dave. Dave isn't paying much attention and catches it late - he rear-ends Charlie. Delphi can still sue Google, but now Dave could sue both Google and Delphi. Fred was asleep - his truck is driving itself. It slams on the brakes and performs a precision panic maneuver to end up on the margin so that Charlie and Dave aren't street meat. Fred can likely be fired for being asleep. Fred's trucking company can sue Google and Delphi, and maybe Fred can sue his trucking company. Elliott watches this pigfuck of an operation and files a report. The highway patrol subpoenas Google's data and discovers that none of this shit would happen if Google wasn't favoring Bob. Meanwhile Bob has caused a pile-up simply for owning Google Diamond, which makes him a likely target of litigation, which adds to the existing caselaw against Google Diamond so his insurance rates go up. Meanwhile, he's not actually any faster to work since the only person he has power over in this entire pigfuck is Adam. This all came about because Google chose to not drive the best they could in two separate instances solely so they could make a buck. There will be plenty of curious litigation associated with autonomous vehicles anyway - the costs/benefits analysis of Google sticking their neck out on this one just doesn't pan out. Neither will it pan out for anyone else - the acquisition cost for a network of the scale necessary is staggeringly high and you don't jeopardize its certification for penny-ante shit like this. And that's really the bottom line - because it's a network, rather than an individual car system, everyone has to be on the same page. Scribble on that page and it's scribbled for everyone. Remember how Audi had to virtually retreat from the US market because mmmmmmmmmaybe their gas pedals were getting stuck? This is like that, only voluntary. It won't happen. Not in any country on the planet. Autonomous networks will drive to the best of their legal abilities, period.
I wonder if this would ever be feasible in other markets? Japan, China, Europe, Russia etc. Edit: removed Hong Kong due to inclusion of China, and added Russia just because.