BMW announced its collaboration with IBM for the development of Artificial Intelligence for the race of future vehicle technologies. BMW will pitch in four of its i8s, to work in conjunction with IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform and its new cognitive system called the Watson. The engineers of both the company will work together at the IBM’s headquarter for Internet of Things (IoT) development in Munich, Germany.
The collaboration will work on the development of artificial intelligence in the car with the help of machine-learning and enable the vehicles to communicate with the driver, surroundings, as well as with other vehicles. The Watson system could assimilate the owner’s manual of the car which the driver can refer to in their ‘natural language’ or in conventional conversation instead of preset phrases which only the computers could understand. The car can machine-learn about the driver’s preferences, needs, and driving habits, then use that information and improvise accordingly to be safer and more efficient.
This artificial intelligence in the vehicles will enable the car to know the destination even before the driver takes the wheel, store common destination to make the journey quicker, improve the in-cabin experience for individual preferences, and use the IoT for real-time traffic, routes, places and pedestrians on a move.
There are plans for integrating the car’s connectivity with IBM’s very own Weather Company. This would let the car to be aware of the weather conditions, and pave out smarter courses and safer routes under any circumstances using the car’s onboard computers and sensors.
They will also be working on the ‘self-healing’ service which the car can carry out by diagnosing and fixing itself. This can herald another dimension for the future autonomous future vehicles. The car will educate the driver about the maintenance and boast of self-adjustment depending upon driver’s preference. The car will also be able to socialise with other cars on the road.
All this may seem a distant future right now or a page out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie. But in coming years, manufacturers working on cars with advanced artificial intelligence may just change the way we drive or not drive at all.
