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Google's Self-Driving Cars Now Know When To Honk (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Google's self-driving cars are not only getting smarter by the day, but they're also getting a little bit more polite. According to the project's latest monthly report, the self-driving car team has recently been teaching the car's AI when and how to honk the horn and give the human drivers on the road a helpful heads up. In order to train its honking algorithm, the team tested a variety of honk-worthy situations, like a car backing out of a blind driveway or a car headed the wrong way down a one-way street. At first, the car would play a little honk sound inside the vehicle so engineers could record whether there was a legitimate need for a honk and provide teaching feedback. Once they felt the AI was ready, they let it blare its horn to the world. The report goes on to say Google has "sound-designed the self-driving car's 'hum' so pedestrians and cyclists around the car can hear it coming." The sound increases when the car speeds up, and decreases when the car slows down.
Be fair, the concept of a self driving car as being made by most companies (tends to follow the rules of the road, stays in lane, does some semblance of the speed limit, avoids accidents, etc.) is generally a poor fit for Rome at least. Haven't been to the other two, but I'm moderately certain that in Rome at least, attempting to avoid accidents and staying in ones lane is considered a sign of weakness and should be avoided at all cost. Or at least the lane markers are really just a suggestion and not a real rule.