National Post (National Edition)
SHARP TURNS AHEAD
AUTOMAKERS ARE CREATING EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT CARS THAT ‘BOND, LEARN AND GROW’ WITH DRIVERS. BUT ARE WE READY TO TRADE PRIVACY FOR AN UPGRADE?
Toyota Motor Corp. could have been advertising a new dating app at the CES tech show in Las Vegas last week: “Growing together, living together, learning together, resonating together,” a display said. “Creating a strong bond, becoming an irreplaceable partner,” it added. “Share the same purpose, watch over each other and help each other.”
The Japanese automaker’s booth had a distinctly New Age vibe, but, contrary to appearances, it is not getting into the matchmaking business. Instead, Toyota was showing off its vision of what driving will look like in 2030: the Concept-i vehicle and the artificial intelligence, named Yui, that inhabits it.
The idea of a car that “bonds closely with the driver, learns about the driver, and grows together with the driver,” as Yui is purported to do, may sound fanciful. But in-vehicle AI was everywhere at this year’s CES, with everyone from Toyota to Hyundai Motor Co. to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV touting intelligent cars as the next big technological milestone.
Automakers and suppliers say vehicles require elaborate artificial intelligence as they become increasingly autonomous to interact with the outside world and to communicate with the humans inside. But detractors say the idea of a car that tracks everywhere you go and everything you do in order to learn about your personal preferences raises serious privacy concerns.
“They’re a treasure trove in terms of wonderful new possibilities, but there are also potential disturbances and privacy invasions that people haven’t even considered,” said Ann Cavoukian, executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto and former privacy commissioner of Ontario. “They’re going to be collecting all of this information, retaining all of this information, and then potentially disclosing all of this information.”
That huge amount of data has the potential to be big business for whoever owns it, whether it’s the automaker or a software supplier. Sales of connected-car packages are expected to hit US$155.9 billion by 2022, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the data gathered by those connected cars could have multiple uses.
For example, Uber Technologies Inc. last week said it will make data collected by its tens of thousands of vehicles available to city planners who want to study traffic patterns, and insurers are already examining driving habits to help lower premiums for the safest drivers.
But there are other uses for the data that are more likely to raise privacy concerns: law enforcement could access vehicle data after an accident to determine who was at fault, or hackers could break into a car’s database to steal information on the driver and his or her habits.
It may sound scary, but Mark Boyadjis, principal analyst and manager of automotive user experience at IHS Markit, said that’s a small price to pay for technological advancements that will completely change the driving experience.
“As the vehicle starts to control driving itself, it needs to be a better listener, it needs to communicate better,” he said. “That’s where we see a shift from a vehicle that’s designed to be controlled to a vehicle that we think will be designed to be experienced.”
This shift will change the vehicle from a simple mode of transport into a “trusted mobility adviser,” said John Hagel, co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, a Silicon Valley-based consultancy for emerging technology.
“Most people in the mobility industry are focused on getting people from Point A to Point B,” he said during a panel discussion at CES. “Our belief is that the real value in mobility is what’s at Point B ... A mobility adviser can say, ‘You haven’t gone there, but you really should and we can help you get there cheaply and effectively.’”
This is the goal of Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance Communications Inc., which develops voice-recognition software for a variety of industries and has a large AI lab in Montreal.
Nuance released a new version at CES of its Dragon Drive connected-car software, already used by most of the major automakers, that improves the automotive assistant’s AI capabilities and allows it to interact with multiple people in a vehicle using voice biometrics.
“We can now recognize very complex commands,” said Eric Montague, senior director for product marketing and strategy at Nuance’s automotive business. “This is a system that is going to think for the driver based on what the driver has requested and all the contextual information that we bring to the vehicle.”
That information will belong to the automaker using Dragon Drive, not to Nuance, Montague said.
During a demonstration of Dragon Drive in a parking garage at the Wynn hotel, Montague issued a complicated series of instructions: “Find a covered car park near Times Square in New York that takes cash or Amex.”
The software immediately gave a list of recommendations, prioritizing garages with charging stations because it knew the vehicle was electric.
Like Toyota’s Yui, Dragon Drive also learns about the driver’s preferences over time by digesting hundreds of data points. For example, if a driver generally visits Starbucks during the week and Tim Hortons on the weekend, Dragon Drive will recommend the closest Starbucks on a Tuesday, but will choose Tim Hortons on a Saturday.
Similar software developed by Panasonic Corp., on display at CES in the Portal concept car designed by Fiat Chrysler, included facial recognition and voice biometrics that can recognize different drivers — say, a mom, dad and teenager — and customize the settings and preferences to each.
Montague said two things have allowed in-vehicle AI to advance to the point where it can truly be a partner to the driver: improvements in speech-recognition accuracy and the advent of the cloud for data storage.
“What really changed the capability of these systems is the cloud,” he said. “Suddenly, the information available in the vehicle and the applications available in the vehicle were augmented by a factor of 100. It’s limitless what you can bring to the vehicle.”
This capability isn’t only true of cars, of course. Apple Inc.’s Siri, Alphabet Inc.’s Google Now and Amazon. com Inc.’s Alexa all use voicerecognition software and AI to varying degrees. But the multiple sensors in a vehicle give it an advantage over these other, more familiar assistants, Montague said.
“(Dragon Drive) has a better ability to learn than the mobile phone, because it has access to hundreds of sensors that Google or Apple or Alexa don’t have access to,” he said. “All these sets of information will allow us to provide far better recommendations than any other assistant or AI technology out there.”
Hyundai has taken the concept of sensor-based intelligence to the extreme. At the company’s booth at CES, it touted its “mood burst concept,” which will adjust the vehicle’s scent, sound, air, temperature, light and seat position according to a driver’s mood.
In this concept, the vehicle is full of sensors analyzing the driver’s every move: the seats have pressure sensors to read posture and alignment; the seatbelt has respiration sensors to gauge breathing rate and depth; the steering wheel has grip-force sensors and heart-rate monitors to read stress; the dashboard has eye-tracking and facialrecognition sensors to determine alertness and emotions.
If the driver seems drowsy, the seat can automatically adjust to an upright position to promote alertness while the car blasts cool air and an energizing peppermint scent. A stressed driver might get a relaxing back massage, warm air and a soothing lavender or eucalyptus scent.
It may sound absurd to drivers who think of their vehicle as a tool to get from one place to another, but this kind of artificial intelligence will soon become the norm, said Nuance’s Montague.
“(All the automakers) are planning now to have some form of assistant in the future,” he said. “It’s a key part of the expectation of the customers, car buyers and users. People are exposed to assistants everywhere and you have to have an in-car interface that is modern and provides the kind of experience that people expect from any device they use today.”
But as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly standard, consumers need to be aware of the privacy implications and ask questions about how their data is being used, said Cavoukian, the former privacy commissioner.
“What concerns me is the lack of transparency associated with this new AI in vehicles and elsewhere; people aren’t aware of what it means,” she said. “The majority of people who are using these devices are clueless as to the potential to spill the beans to unwanted parties, and that goes with the car, too.”
As an example, Cavoukian said a wife who wants to prove that her husband has been cheating on her could use data from his vehicle to find out where he has been driving, and when, to help her case in divorce court.
Cavoukian recommends consumers ask how they can protect their privacy when they buy a vehicle with artificial intelligence.
Some in-vehicle software manufacturers are developing ultra-secure software — such as BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX — that aims to be impenetrable to hackers. IHS’s Boyadjis said automakers, suppliers and tech companies are also looking at how they can collect anonymous data in a way that doesn’t identify individuals.
However, in a self-driving future where passengers are putting their lives in the hands of a robot, feeling like the car has real intelligence may be necessary to help consumers confidently adopt the technology without feeling like they’re compromising their safety, Boyadjis said.
Tens of thousands of North Americans die every year in car accidents, but even one death caused by an autonomous vehicle could be enough to make consumers second-guess the technology.
“We’re not dealing with a question of rationale or logic, we’re dealing with a question of emotions now,” he said. “The AI needs (to have) a relationship with the driver or a partnership with the driver, because we’re no longer dealing with just a logical, rational decision.”
Boyadjis said he isn’t worried about privacy and believes consumers’ fears “will gradually and gently” be overcome. “If (the detractors) want to keep driving, that’s fine, but I’m going to go ahead and start to take advantage of the conveniences that modern technology can offer,” he said. “Quite frankly, I think most of the general public will, too.”
THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE USING THESE DEVICES ARE CLUELESS AS TO THE POTENTIAL TO SPILL THE BEANS TO UNWANTED PARTIES, AND THAT GOES WITH THE CAR, TOO. — ANN CAVOUKIAN, PRIVACY AND BIG DATA INSTITUTE AT RYERSON UNIVERSITY