Google’s head of self-driving tech: We’re not building a car, we’re building the driver - Recode

An important driving distinction

"Google — which has been working on its self-driving cars since 2009 — is not in the car-making business. Nope, Google is in the superhuman-driver-making business, according to Dmitri Dolgov, the company’s head of self-driving technology.

Driving is a social activity, Dolgov told Recode during a live walkthrough of the technology on Google’s self-driving car. That means that the car has to not only be able to detect and recognize humans and other objects, it also has to be able to interact with, understand and react to their behavior.

To that end, the company’s self-driving software has developed to be able to detect and understand things like hand signals — a uniform method of symbolic communication that pedestrians and human drivers often use on the road — and react appropriately. So, when a bicyclist, for example, signals left using his or her hand, the car will react as a (generous) human might."

Google’s head of self-driving tech: We’re not building a car, we’re building the driver - Recode