The cars of tomorrow will know what the mood of its driver is. Self-driving cars of the future will have the capacity to change its driving style depending on the current emotion of the person behind the wheel. In other words, if the driver is nervous, the smart vehicle will drive slower and more carefully.
The technology that will allow such feat is courtesy of Affectiva. The company is known for working on the effects of emotion analytics on marketing. It is now training its sights on developing driver emotion recognition as well as real-time facial analysis that will prove useful to the automotive industry.
The deep learning technology, when applied on cars, can minimize the risks on the road. For example, a car can figure out if the driver is distracted by recognizing his or her emotion. The smart car can detect if the driver is drowsy, nervous or in any other mood that can prove detrimental. The tech allows the car to issue alerts that will warn the driver so he or she can be more attentive and more focused on the road to avoid accidents. Another way that the tech can help is that it can tell the driver to cool down when he or she is angry. Road rage is a common and often deadly phenomenon and a car that can tell if its driver is mad can help minimize such incidents. CNET also noted that the deep learning tech will help the self-driving vehicle decide on the proper way of giving the reins back to the driver.
Autonomous vehicles are one trend that will surely not go away anytime soon. In fact, a number of tech companies are already working on improving autonomous technology while some are trying to integrate it into their operations. A deep learning tech like the one Affectiva is developing will certainly point the self-driving trend to the right direction.
