Toyota Concept-i wants to be your friend

  It will work on relationship-building with its human partner-owner

Toyota pulled the sheet off its new Concept-i in Las Vegas the day before CES opened, and we swear the car winked at us.

“Yes, it winks and blinks,” said a Toyota guy we know.

Then it did it again. And a message on the door lit up and said, “Hello.” The Concept-i was flirting. We’re calling HR.

Officially, the Concept-i is meant “… to foster a warm and friendly user experience.”

“Imagine if the vehicles of the future were friendly, and focused on you,” Toyota mused in a press release.

The idea is the Concept-i will use artificial intelligence to learn more about you and interact with you as necessary. That extends from noticing if you’re nodding off and then waking you up with a cold air-conditioned blast, to determining if you’re in a bad mood and then playing your favorite song to cheer you up.

“If you’re angry, it’ll remind you about someplace you drove in it that you liked,” the Toyota guy said.

So imagine the parking lot at Disneyland jammed with Concept-is. It would even talk to you.

“At the heart of Concept-i is a powerful AI (artificial intelligence) that learns with the driver to build a relationship that is meaningful and human,” Toyota said. “More than just driving patterns and schedules, the concept is designed to leverage multiple technologies to measure emotion, mapped against where and when the driver travels around the world. The combination gives Concept-i exceptional ability to use mobility to improve quality of life.”

The car can be either driven or set to autonomous operation. Or it could in theory -- the show car you see here needed to be pushed onto the stage. 

Read more here.

A source: autoweek.com