谷歌无人驾驶汽车发生交通事故
在2月情人节那天，谷歌的一辆无人驾驶汽车撞上了一辆公交车，这是谷歌无人驾驶汽车首次系统判断错误而导致的事故。对于一直强调无人驾驶汽车的谷歌来说，这是个坏消息。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
etiquette规矩['etɪket; etɪ'ket]
scrape擦痕[skreɪp]
encounter遭遇[ɪn'kaʊntə; en-]
unflattering不好看的[ʌn'flæt(ə)rɪŋ]
sort将…分类[sɔːt]
abide忍受[ə'baɪd]
negotiation谈判；顺利的通过[nɪgəʊʃɪ'eɪʃ(ə)n]
minor collision轻微的碰撞
simulation模拟[,sɪmjʊ'leɪʃən]
Google driverless car in road accident （491words）
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
One of Google's driverless cars has been involved in an accident for the first time in a situation where human drivers rely on the normal social etiquette of the road to avoid scrapes, according to an accident report filed in California.
The incident highlights the challenges of programming machines to deal with the sort of social situations that humans encounter every day on the roads, but which are beyond robots to resolve, experts said.
It also threatens to cast an unflattering light on the technology at a time when Google is fighting a proposed California rule requiring autonomous vehicles to have human drivers on hand to override their controls in emergencies.
However, the company suggested that the accident would have occurred even if a human had been at the wheel, while adding that it had already adjusted its algorithms to take account of the lessons from the scrape.
“There are all sorts of social clues that people abide by that are hard to program into a car,” said Jerry Kaplan, a serial technology entrepreneur and author of a recent book on robotics. “There was nothing terrible about this, no one got hurt or killed. But it will be a long time before the cars can be driven in heavily used streets and abide by the same social conventions people use.”
In a filing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Google said its car had been trying to pull out into slow-moving traffic on Valentine's Day when a bus driver did not slow to leave room, causing a minor collision.
In a blog post on Monday, it blamed the accident on a “tricky set of circumstances” caused partly by an adjustment it had made to the car's algorithms weeks earlier to help it drive more like a human.
“This is a classic example of the negotiation that's a normal part of driving — we're all trying to predict each other's movements,” the company said. “We clearly bear some responsibility.” However, it also said that a Google employee in the car had also
The car had pulled close to the side of the road to make a turn, leaving room for other vehicles that were carrying on straight ahead to pass in the same lane — a manoeuvre Google said it had programmed into the car to make it a more considerate driver.
After finding its path was blocked by sandbags that had been placed round a drain, the car was forced to move back out into the line of traffic, causing the accident.
Google said it had already programmed lessons from the accident into its software, along with its findings from running simulations of thousands of similar situations.
“From now on, our cars will more deeply understand that buses (and other large vehicles) are less likely to yield to us than other types of vehicles, and we hope to handle situations like this more gracefully in the future,” it said.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
1.Where did the accident happen?
A.Utah
B.Montana
C.Scotland
D.California
答案(1)
2.How many people got hurt or killed in this accident?
A.1
B.2
C.0
D.3
答案(2)
3.Which one is not right for Google driverless?
A.It is a tricky set of circumstances.
B.It is trying to predict each other's movements.
C.There is no one in the driverless car.
D.The accident would have occurred even if a human had been at the wheel.
答案(3)
4.What kind of vehicle is less likely to yield to driverless car as Google said?
A.large vehicle
B.SUV
C.MPV
D.minicar
答案(4)
* * *
(1)答案：D.California
解释：谷歌表示，这起事故发生在加州山景城，当时无人驾驶汽车正试图绕过道路上的一些沙包，结果与左方行驶过来的一辆公交车发生了碰撞。
(2)答案：C.0
解释：双方都是慢速行驶，并未造成人员受伤。
(3)答案：C.There is no one in the driverless car.
解释：当时车上有一位测试司机，他从后视镜上看到一辆公交车正开过来，但是他认为“公交车会停车或者减速以让谷歌无人驾驶车先通过”。
(4)答案：A.large vehicle
解释:文章最后一段。
