Toyota to produce cars with artificial intelligence

The Toyota Motor Corporation has announced on Friday collaboration with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for developing "intelligent" instead of self-driving cars. 

The project will be funded with $50 million for the robotics and artificial intelligence effort.

Toyota which is the largest carmaker, imagining future cars that will serve as "guardian angels" and watch the driving behavior of humans and intervenes to correct mistakes or prevent collisions when necessary.

According to Gil Pratt, a prominent American roboticist, the distinction is a significant one.  He left his position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Pentagon to direct the new effort.

Instead of competing with Google and Tesla, which are developing cars that drive without human intervention, the carmaker company will concentrate on using advances in A.I. technologies to make people better drivers.

He depicted the two approaches as "parallel" meaning the machine watches what you do, and "serial" meaning it replaces you.

Dr. Pratt said Toyota's goal was to keep the "human in the loop" in the car of the future and to make sure that driving stays fun. "A worry we have is that the autonomy not take away the fun in driving," he said. "If the autonomy can avoid a wreck, it can also make it more fun to drive."

He also indicated that Toyota's upcoming AI and robotics technologies can enable elderly to continue their independence to keep their mobility inside and outside the home.

Professor Daniela Rus of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and Professor Fei-Fei Li, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) spoke in turn of their goals of "human-centric" artificial intelligence.  

Professor Rus said the car should have to be smart enough to when to intervene automatically and in some cases know better than the driver does.

"We see this as basic computer science, A.I. and robotics that will make a difference in transportation," said Dr. Rus.