The great unknowns of artificial intelligence
Source: Wagener
Daimler design chief Gorden Wagener believes in the potential of artificial intelligence. He calls it the most important technology poised to enhance the user experience of vehicle drivers. If a car can learn where you typically drive, the music you enjoy and how warm or cool you like the cabin, it can automate navigation and entertainment and comfort functions to free up the driver's time.
The car can become a digital companion of sorts, a virtual someone who seems to care for you. That's a metaphor of luxury, Wagener mused. It could change vehicle design dramatically, he said, because the need for interfaces largely disappears.
But he acknowledges -- with a sense of humor -- the unknowns about the technology. Wild theories abound: The machines become smarter than humans. Humans live to be 400 years old because they'll get a constant supply of spare parts.
"It's almost scary," Wagener said with a laugh. "Vehicles, they run autonomously? And they can think about what they do? It sounds like a movie. We know from Terminator how that ends, right?"
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