If Traffic is an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Can Smart Cars Evolve Co-operative Behavior?

Can small tribes of cooperating smart cars improve overall traffic even if they are not in the majority? Sure, if every car was a self-driving car maybe traffic jams could dissolve like blood clots on anticoagulants, but what about that messy in-between period? It will be some time before smart cars rule the road. Until then can smart cars make traffic better?
Adoption is hard. This is a general problem in tech. You want people to join your social network yet people won't join until enough people have already joined. What you really want is that virtuous circle to develop, where as more people adopt a technology it causes even more people to adopt it. So startups spend their VC money fast and furiously in hopes of acquiring new customers betting the lifetime value of a customer will be worth the investment. VC money is the dead corpse that feeds the rest of the ecosystem.
Traffic is already an example of a vicious cycle. Horrendous traffic jams are now the norm and "good" traffic windows are just tall tales texted to children. And it keeps on getting worse and not in a worse is better sort of way. Yet the incentives are still not Continue reading