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For more than 30 years, Nintendo’s Mario Kart has been one of the world’s most popular racing games. But safe driving in the game doesn’t necessarily mean winning driving. So, can the program be reengineered to help autonomous driving systems learn how to drive safely?

Researchers at the University of Maryland said they think it can. They’re putting the joystick and controller in the virtual hands, so to speak, of autonomous driving programs before they get tested on the road.

“We’re actually using these automated driving systems to figure out how to verify that the systems are correct, and then make sure that they adhere to the rules of the road, and design ways that we can make these better if they don’t, if they violate these rules,” said Mumu Xu, associate professor of aerospace engineering.

Handle Mario Kart safely, and then go from there.

“We train Mario to drive around a lap,” she told WTOP. “We train him to go fast and go safe. And based off of those traces that he drives, we take those and we can give you a score to say how safe you are.”

Based off that score, they can circle back with the designers and provide feedback to ensure Mario is safer next time.

“We can say to the designers, go back and train your car again to make sure that it doesn’t violate certain rules, it speeds, or it bumps into other cars,” she added.

The program is in the very beginning stages, Xu said. It’s one way to demonstrate how the artificial intelligence program here can assess driving, she added, since most of her experience involves autonomous military vehicles that the government isn’t prepared to show off yet.

Mario just so happens to be really popular in the AI world.

“Using Mario is a way for us to work in simulation, to first test whether or not something is useful,” Xu said. “Then, we can go out into the roads and then make sure that things are actually correct.”