Waymo cars honk at each other throughout the night, disturbing SF neighbors
abc7news.com
San Francisco resident Randol White says he heard the noises for the first time about two weeks ago -- he was woken up around 4 a.m. to the Waymos honking at each other.
  • @[email protected]English
    36•3 months ago

    Why don’t these communicate with each other?

    Lidar, 29 cameras, radar and high end CPU and GPU but they can only communicate with other through honking?

    Really?

    Is this a security feature?

    • ggppjjEnglish
      22•3 months ago

      I strongly doubt they’re communicating through honks to each other, it sounds like a safety feature that needs tuning to me.

  • lnxtxEnglish
    25•3 months ago

    Just random code:

    27001. (a) The driver of a motor vehicle when reasonably necessary
    to insure safe operation shall give audible warning with his horn.

    Honk for the other vehicle in a parking space?
    Who is in danger?

    • DarkThoughts
      22•3 months ago

      To be fair, regular drivers use it way too leniently too. I wish it was as loud on the inside as it is on the outside. Then maybe people would be a bit more hesitant to use it outside of emergencies.

      • @olostaEnglish
        5•3 months ago

        I don’t understand why cars don’t have a secondary sound warning system that make no more noise than a bike bell. Use the honk when there is immediate danger and the bell when you want to gently advertise your presence. Buses have this why not cars?

  • @raynethackeryEnglish
    20•3 months ago

    There was a short story by Isaac Asimov that had robotic cars on a farm that some old guy salvaged. At the end, they were all honking at each other to communicate. I won’t spoil the story in case anyone wants to read it. It is in The Complete Robot collection. I’ll just say it was creepy.

  • @[email protected]English
    18•3 months ago

    If they had half a brain, Waymo could geofence and time gate the honking so it won’t occur in those lots.

  • @[email protected]English
    14•3 months ago

    Despite the inconvenience, he tells me he’s still a fan of the autonomous vehicle company and uses the cars on a regular basis.

    looks like there’s no reason to fix them, then

  • @EiriEnglish
    5•3 months ago

    Untitled Goose game ruined me. I think of a different kind of honk any time I see the word.

  • 🐍🩶🐢English
    2•3 months ago

    This reminds me a lot of AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robot), except the Omron ones I have been working with are super dumb. I wish they would honk or give better indication that they are incapable of parking or going around each other. Those Waymo cars at least seem to be able to figure it out.

    Not to say all AMRs are that bad. I have seen some really good systems, but it all comes down to the software and configuration. I know this is Fuck Cars, but the technology that goes into those Waymo is an amazing feat of engineering. I am amused that they didn’t think too hard on the sound pollution and disturbances.

  • @[email protected]English
    -2•3 months ago

    At least this is something that can be fixed with code, while the stupidity of human drivers is forever haha

    I hope we’ll soon see single seat driverless cars that are about the size of velomobiles or the podbike.

    PS: A while back my PC would start up in the middle of the night for shitty windows updates and wake me up. Things like that can REALLY make you cranky or angry.

    • @PheganEnglish
      3•3 months ago

      Humans write code. So it’s actually an extra point of failure. Humans are also built to react to every changing conditions, code can only react to conditions it was programmed for.

      Driverless cars are a pipe dream, I am open to being proven wrong by the future, but I do not believe we will ever see fully autonomous cars.