Can social awareness improve autonomous cars’ road robustness? That’s what a team of researchers at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory set out to discover in a recent study. They built a system that classifies the behavior of other drivers with respect to their selfishness — in other words, whether drivers are less likely to act altruistically toward other cars. In tests, they say their algorithm better predicted how drivers would behave by a factor of 25%. “Creating more human-like behavior in autonomous vehicles (AVs) is fundamental for the safety of passengers and surrounding vehicles, since behaving in a predictable manner enables humans to understand and appropriately respond to the AV’s actions,” said graduate student and lead research author Wilko Schwarting in a statement.