Monday 2 November 2009

If This Is The Future Of Motoring, You Can Keep It!

An article in io9 outlines the chilling possibilities for drivers in the future:
The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent, or AIDA for short, is the result of a collaboration between Audi and MIT to try and find a way to humanize the relationship between nagging automated systems and a frustrated driver... by adding a face to the nagging systems.
Yes indeed. Your car will become it's own backseat driver.
A laser projector the size of a deck of cards is mounted inside the head and projects colour graphics to create expressions on its "face". According to Mikey Siegel, part of a team at the MIT Media Lab collaborating with Audi to design AIDA, the versatile neck and face allow the robot to make a wide range of human-like gestures that can send subtle signals to the driver. A downturned face with pleading eyes, for example, indicates that AIDA is "worried" because the driver has failed to buckle the safety belt.
Oh, give me strength!

And that's not all:
It uses sensors inside and outside the car to pick up clues about the driver's state of mind: grip strength and skin-conductivity sensors in the steering wheel, for example, tell the robot when the driver is tense. AIDA also uses GPS logs of a driver's travels to learn favourite locations and suggest better routes.
This is progress..?

8 comments:

manwiddicombe said...

Add into that the spectre of Project Veronica .. .. ..

MTG said...

It will not be to the liking of boy racers and uniformed nutters - but I welcome servitude to computers to end horrific accidents and stupidity on roads.

Limit human input to select a destination and allow intelligent automation to do what it does best.

Pogo said...

Bearing in mind that you can get "done" for having a satnav stuck on the wrong bit of the windscreen, because it's considered "distracting" - WTF do they think that an illuminated talking manequin head is going to do to the driver's concentration?

It's enough to make a well-ordered mind boggle at its pistons!

Weekend Yachtsman said...

Suggest better routes, oh yeah.

Those'll be the ones down lanes the vehicle doesn't fit along, the ones where there are temporary traffic lights causing hour-long delays, the ones where the one-way street was put in last week the OTHER way, and so on.

Heaven preserve us from all this nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Just what you need, Max Headroom gurning with displeasure at your driving habits. Hopefully this little piece of technology for technology's sake has an off switch.

Can't wait for Clarkson's review.

AntiCitizenOne said...

because Clippy was such a success...

"Hey! It's looks like you're starting a journey".

Maybe put a Plush Purple Dinosaur called Barney on the dashboard?

Lastly maybe they could call it a TomTom-Stop?

JuliaM said...

"Add into that the spectre of Project Veronica .. .. .."

Fantastic! Nanny and sneak, all rolled into one...

"Limit human input to select a destination and allow intelligent automation to do what it does best."

I think that's just a tad too far in the future for any of us to worry about.

"It's enough to make a well-ordered mind boggle at its pistons!"

Indeed!

JuliaM said...

"Suggest better routes, oh yeah.

Those'll be the ones down lanes the vehicle doesn't fit along..."


Yes, there's been a few of those recently. That's the danger of relying on 'infallible' echnology...

"Can't wait for Clarkson's review."

That's going to be spectacular...

"because Clippy was such a success..."

Heh! Can't wait for the spoofs.