Less emphasis on autonomous driving for AI, more on infotainment
With the new year it is almost time for a new edition of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Mercedes is presenting a new infotainment environment driven by artificial intelligence, while other manufacturers are also increasingly opting for this type of secondary applications of AI.
The Concept CLA will make its American debut on the Mercedes stand from January 9. That is of course not that exciting for us Europeans, but CES would not be CES if Mercedes did not explicitly focus on the technology on board the car, which is a fairly concrete precursor to a new CLA. According to Mercedes, the new MB.OS system in this car is equipped with a new version of the well-known voice assistant, which responds with a simple ‘Hey Mercedes!’ can be activated. None of this is new, but what is new is that this new version uses artificial intelligence to determine the correct response to occupants’ requests. According to the German, this should create a much more natural, intuitive and personal interaction.
Less autonomous
This application of artificial intelligence is something we will see more often at CES, according to an analysis by Automotive News. The medium reports that until recently, ‘AI’ was seen as the way to make autonomous driving possible, especially at the Las Vegas fair. After all, artificial intelligence could fill the gap where normal computer calculations fail, namely where situations need to be interpreted quickly and skillfully. It is now noticeable that the ambitions have been scaled back somewhat. Autonomous prototypes have been involved in accidents in various places, which means that (local) authorities on the left and right are no longer very keen on these types of mobile testing grounds. Full autonomy also seems further away at CES than a few years ago, so the emphasis is now on driver interaction and other, less bombastic AI solutions.
By the way, the infotainment system in the CLA Concept stands out for another reason: Mercedes uses horizontal screens here, while all recent production models of the brand have an almost square, horizontal infotainment screen in the middle. Due to its relatively old age, the current CLA still has a horizontal screen combination, but perhaps Mercedes will stick to this in future compact models. Mercedes already uses artificial intelligence in 900,000 cars driving in the US, but is apparently working on implementing this solution on an (even) larger scale.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl