[Editor’s Note: Jason addressed issues like this, how human behavior and culture are important factors worth considering, in his book, Robot Take The Wheel, so maybe you should buy a copy, already? – MH] Yes, eyes. Give them to the cars. Ideally, big googly eyes, and, more importantly, they should be positioned in the correct place, where the headlights are located, and which is very much not the windshield. The team of University of Tokyo researchers called their project Gazing Car, which involved fitting a golf cart-sized car with large, robotic eyes that conveyed where the car’s attention was focused and the car’s intended general path. The team acknowledged that equipment like turn indicators do some of this sort of work, visually conveying the car or driver’s intent, but it seems the eyes have potential to convey even more information. Here, they made a video demonstrating the project:
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there; in addition to the real-world tests, they also conducted virtual reality tests, and in those found a 64% reduction of unsafe street crossings when the cars had eyes on them compared to those that did not. Here’s the study’s abstract: That last sentence there is especially interesting: gender differences? It does seem that the researchers did find differences in how men and women reacted to the eyes, which I wouldn’t have expected. For example, they found eyes reduced accidents for men, while it improved efficiency for women:
The team’s work is extensive, expanding to situations beyond just basic street-crossing situations to include more advanced, “critical” situations including ones with a hurried street crosser and the car both willing and unwilling to yield to the pedestrian:
There’s a lot of interesting information in these papers and it’s focused on a part of AV development that tends to get overshadowed by the more dramatic actual driving and object avoidance and other parts of the automated driving problem.
We communicate almost constantly as we drive around other beings and people in other vehicles, whether we realize it or not. Part of making a truly automated vehicle will be to automate those innate communication processes we take for granted. Automated vehicles need to operate in the world of human culture and communication, and if that means cars will end up being designed with big, hilarious eyes, then, well, so be it. It’ll be fun to watch the car designers go nuts with this, anyway. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/design-3/design-history-cadillacs-dagmars-an-intimate-look-at-their-origins-development-and-namesake/ However I personally wouldn’t object to a comeback….. https://dygtyjqp7pi0m.cloudfront.net/i/36908/31767241_13.jpg I had a bit of a crush on Carol… If the guv’ment can mandate back-up cameras on all new cars, why couldn’t they mandate googly eyes too? I say bring it on. Cars should absolutely be more communicative. Horns, turn signals, flashers, brake lights, and high beams. That’s all we’ve got, and that’s sad. They are definitely too low. Needs to be higher so that the eyes can be seen. Cars do have body language, and drivers telegraph their intent without realizing. Someone who’s getting ready to pull away from a stop will often inch forward a little before they actually get going. If they’re about to make a right turn, you can usually tell by the way the car is positioned even if the driver isn’t using their turn signals. A car whose driver is on their phone will often be slow, and wander in its lane. There are lots of little cues that people give off, without even noticing. Do autonomous vehicles have the same body language? I don’t know why they would. An AI doesn’t unconsciously turn its “thoughts” into small movements while it contemplates the action it’s about to take. It doesn’t necessarily set itself up for its next move in the same way as a human, either. It just flips from one state to the next, without warning. Mounting eyes on AVs would give them the ability to telegraph what they’re about to do. The car could look in the direction it’s about to go, and its eyes could go from half-closed to fully open just before it starts to move. Eyes are very expressive, and could be used to help signal intentions. Again, it’s not going to happen because car designers are Serious People and car buyers hate whimsy, but I bet it would work. Cars do have some semblance of body language, though it’s different than ours, it can be learned. Anybody who spends time around other animals gets to understand a somewhat alien mode of communication in a similar manner. I can tell you exactly what a dog is about to do before it acts without using good ol fashion eye communication. Maybe we should put tails on cars too? Brake lights on the front too might be a potential solution. (they would need to be a different color, green maybe?)
