Nissan's New Self-Driving Tech Knows What You're Thinking

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

Nissan's New Self-Driving Tech Knows What You're Thinking

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on January 4th, 2018 in the Automotive News category.

 

[Corsa]

I might be alone here, but I do not like technology like this being developed.
I just don't see a need for it.
I do however see a day where corporations or governments can actually view our thoughts.
Build your autonomous vehicles to make our highways safer but leave our thoughts alone.
It's the last personal space we seem to have in an ever evolving world.

 

[Famine]

It'll probably only work if you can think in Russian though...

 

[Sick Cylinder]

This will not work in real life - almost all road traffic accidents are caused by one or more people failing to pay attention to their driving.

 

[Corsa]

This will not work in real life - almost all road traffic accidents are caused by one or more people failing to pay attention to their driving.

Agreed the only way is to 100% remove the human factor.
Which we could never truly do as an autonomous vehicle still needs maintenance.
The amount of vehicles running around with bald tires or bad suspension componets could just as easily cause wrecks.

 

[Famine]

Which we could never truly do as an autonomous vehicle still needs maintenance.
The amount of vehicles running around with bald tires or bad suspension componets could just as easily cause wrecks.

What if the car could scan its safety critical systems and refuse to drive anywhere but the nearest garage if they were detected as unsafe?

Anyway, this system isn't about reading your mind and applying it to how the car drives. It's about detecting intent in relevant motor functions and, possibly, mood. You're still driving it in driving mode, and it's still driving itself in autonomous mode.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I recall that Toyota had a concept car a few years ago that could supposedly determine your mood from the way you were driving and would adjust itself accordingly. It also had an LED "face" on the front that was supposed to reflect your mood to other drivers around you, presumably so they'd stay farther away if you were driving angry or something. I think it was in one of the GT Prologues that was mostly concept cars.

What if the car could scan its safety critical systems and refuse to drive anywhere but the nearest garage if they were detected as unsafe?

Then people will sue carmakers claiming it's a ploy to force them into expensive dealership visits trying to push them into buying a new car, the same way people are suing Apple for slowing down old iPhones to preserve the battery but claiming it's trying to force them into buying new phones.

People generally won't fix something until it stops working, and they don't like it when someone else tries to tell them they need to fix their stuff before it stops working.

 

[Famine]

I recall that Toyota had a concept car a few years ago that could supposedly determine your mood from the way you were driving and would adjust itself accordingly. It also had an LED "face" on the front that was supposed to reflect your mood to other drivers around you, presumably so they'd stay farther away if you were driving angry or something. I think it was in one of the GT Prologues that was mostly concept cars.

Toyota pod, in GT: Concept.

Then people will sue carmakers claiming it's a ploy to force them into expensive dealership visits trying to push them into buying a new car, the same way people are suing Apple for slowing down old iPhones to preserve the battery but claiming it's trying to force them into buying new phones.

Except it's not illegal to use an old phone, but it's rather illegal (depending on jurisdiction) to drive an unroadworthy car. If the car won't drive because it's unroadworthy, there's no grounds to sue anyone...

 

[Joey D]

Except it's not illegal to use an old phone, but it's rather illegal (depending on jurisdiction) to drive an unroadworthy car. If the car won't drive because it's unroadworthy, there's no grounds to sue anyone...

You know a place called American exists right? We sue everyone for every reason we can think of...and for some reasons we can't.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Toyota pod, in GT: Concept.

That's it. I knew it had some silly name but I couldn't remember it offhand.

Except it's not illegal to use an old phone, but it's rather illegal (depending on jurisdiction) to drive an unroadworthy car. If the car won't drive because it's unroadworthy, there's no grounds to sue anyone...

"I was going to take my car to the garage I use to have it fixed, but the starter's locked out so I had to pay for a tow truck, and the garage said only the dealership can remove the lockout because you need special software to do that. So now I have to have the dealership fix it and they said it's going to cost way more than what my garage quoted me."

Less about the car not being safe to drive and more about (potentially) taking away the owner's choice of where they can have it repaired.

 

[Famine]

because you need special software

That's an issue that exists now, and not one particularly symptomatic of autonomous cars...

 

[Corsa]

.

 

[TheNuvolari]

They better not know what I'm thinking.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Doubt this will ever be available.

 

[Sick Cylinder]

It's about detecting intent in relevant motor functions and, possibly, mood. You're still driving it in driving mode, and it's still driving itself in autonomous mode.

I expect it will work well under laboratory conditions when an intelligent, attentive and alert subject is at the wheel - however most of the people I see driving every day are none of those things.

Almost all motor accidents are due to inattention (from memory I think around 10% are due to excessive speed) - I don't think there is any intent in relevant motor functions to be detected from a lot of drivers - they are on the phone, texting, looking at and conversing with a passenger, putting on makeup, shaving, combing their hair, looking at maps, fiddling with the satnav and generally doing anything, but driving. First word out of their mouths after running down a motorcyclist, bicycle, bus or fire engine is normally, "I'm sorry I didn't see you."

 

[05XR8]

I might be alone here, but I do not like technology like this being developed.
I just don't see a need for it.
I do however see a day where corporations or governments can actually view our thoughts.
Build your autonomous vehicles to make our highways safer but leave our thoughts alone.
It's the last personal space we seem to have in an ever evolving world.

That and in the toilet.

 

[Famine]

I expect it will work well under laboratory conditions when an intelligent, attentive and alert subject is at the wheel - however most of the people I see driving every day are none of those things.

Almost all motor accidents are due to inattention (from memory I think around 10% are due to excessive speed) - I don't think there is any intent in relevant motor functions to be detected from a lot of drivers - they are on the phone, texting, looking at and conversing with a passenger, putting on makeup, shaving, combing their hair, looking at maps, fiddling with the satnav and generally doing anything, but driving. First word out of their mouths after running down a motorcyclist, bicycle, bus or fire engine is normally, "I'm sorry I didn't see you."

That's not really relevant to this system though.

The idea isn't that it uses what you're thinking - which is commonly Not Much among the driving public - to control the car. It doesn't control the car at all, in fact.

It detects what you're intending to do with the controls and prepares other safety systems to compensate. Those people who treat every control as digital? The car will sense the intent to accelerate and prepare the traction control system rather than waiting for slip, or sense the intent to brake and prepare the brake preload and ABS systems rather than waiting for the pedal stamp and locking up. Or it'll detect the appropriate amount of steering angle for the approaching corner at the speed you intend to take it and adjust the stability control (or steer-by-wire system - Nissan has one after all) before it all goes tits up rather than while it is. It's broadly the same technology we have in thought-controlled prosthetics now - it detects the intent to carry out a motor function and adjusts itself accord to the type and magnitude of the function intended.

Or it'll sense that you feel cold/hot before you make a conscious decision that you are cold/hot and change the climate controls accordingly. Or flick off Absolute 80s the microsecond your brain twigs it's U2, because it knows that you know that U2 suck.


It has nothing to do with how much attention the driver is paying to anything.

 

[Corsa]

I saw the car coming at my wifes door and quickly realized the only way to avoid contact is floor it, but my car preemptively thought
we were going to execute an emergency brake.
My opinion remains I don't like it, I'll drive my vehicle and take full responsibility for my actions.

 

[Famine]

I saw the car coming at my wifes door and quickly realized the only way to avoid contact is floor it, but my car preemptively thought
we were going to execute an emergency brake.

In a car that takes its cues from your intent, why would it think the opposite of what you were thinking?

And even if it did, the point is that it prepares the systems you intend to use. It doesn't do it for you...

 

[Corsa]

Because our brains process and decide so quickly, I changed my mind thus my intent.
As I was changing my mind the car was preloading the brakes when I saw I needed to accelerate.
You obviously like and support the tech and that's great.
I do not, as we're likely many decades away from fully autonomous vehicles let alone intent reading vehicles.
I'll call myself dead by then so it probably doesn't apply to me.

 

[Famine]

Because our brains process and decide so quickly, I changed my mind thus my intent.

Which the system will read and prepare for.

As I was changing my mind the car was preloading the brakes when I saw I needed to accelerate.

Brake system priming won't affect your ability to accelerate. Your car will still accelerate as if the tech wasn't even there.

You obviously like and support the tech and that's great.

Nope. I'm not interested in it. I'm just wrote the original article and am pointing out where objections to the technology are using examples that are not relevant to the technology - because bad information is bad. You wouldn't object to cruise control because you want to use your own indicators, so you shouldn't object to a system that preloads safety systems because you might want to accelerate instead of braking.

Once again, this system takes no control of the vehicle. It takes no decisions or actions away from the driver. It may even make some drives (and drivers) better, by ensuring the safety systems required for going down a backroad way too fast are ready for it rather than reacting to it.

 

[Danoff]

Seems pretty sweet actually. If you can monitor brain activity, it seems trivial to tell when the driver is panicing vs. calm. So maybe you put Kimi Raikkonen in the car and he can spit out hotlaps without a single driver assist triggering, because the computer can sense that he's not out of control. You put me in the same car and I come into a turn too hot and it can tell by the fact that my brain lit up "oh god I'm going to die", and can step in to help.

Taking it a step further, it can tell that I'm going to mash the gas and it thinks "that'll spin the car". But it can also tell that I've got a grin on my face and am super excited and it thinks "I'm pretty sure he wants to spin the car, keep the aids off".

I like where this is headed.

Also, changing the radio song is often times one of the most dangerous things I do while driving. So if it can figure out that I don't like the song, that's an excellent step. Just gotta turn it off when my kids want to listen to craptastic music and I'd rather listen to that than their complaints about not listening to it.

 

[Famine]

Taking it a step further, it can tell that I'm going to mash the gas and it thinks "that'll spin the car". But it can also tell that I've got a grin on my face and am super excited and it thinks "I'm pretty sure he wants to spin the car, keep the aids off".

Strangely, Ferrari has a system similar to that - without reading your mind - called Side Slip Control.

In essence, when the car loses traction it works out what it would do to keep control of the slide (either to correct it, or to keep it going). If it decides that you're not doing either of those things, the aids kick in and bring it back together. If it decides that you're correcting it properly, or keeping the slide going properly, it lets you get on with it.

 

[Danoff]

Strangely, Ferrari has a system similar to that - without reading your mind - called Side Slip Control.

In essence, when the car loses traction it works out what it would do to keep control of the slide (either to correct it, or to keep it going). If it decides that you're not doing either of those things, the aids kick in and bring it back together. If it decides that you're correcting it properly, or keeping the slide going properly, it lets you get on with it.

Not as good for donuts though. Mind reading seems like the next step in making sure that driver aids are off until you're actually out of control... which for some people is almost all the time.