The image of Mike Beebe, CEO of Mayfield Robotics, speaking and Kuri, a personal robot designed by his company, are displayed on a large screen during the Inforum Michigan annual NAIAS breakfast at the Renaissance Center on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018.
(Photo: Eric D. Lawrence)
When will autonomous vehicles be in regular use on public roads?
Auto journalist Doron Levin offered the kind of answer that sometimes gets lost in all the hype about driverless cars.
“The answer is very simple: No one knows,” he said Friday during the Inforum Michigan 16th annual North American International Auto Show Breakfast at the Renaissance Center. The event, during the Detroit auto show, brings together female professionals from across the automotive industry.
Levin was one of four panelists, including Marcy Klevorn, executive vice president and president of mobility for Ford Motor Co., joining journalist Pattie Sellers and a personal robot on stage for a talk on “ways artificial intelligence is changing human interaction with technology.”
On the topic of widespread autonomous vehicle use, Klevorn appeared to agree with Levin, noting that all automakers and companies working on AV development have their targets — Ford plans a fully autonomous vehicle in commercial operation by 2021.
“It’ll be ready when it’s ready,” Klevorn said of the technology. “It’s an evolution.”
That evolution isn’t just focused on whether autonomous vehicles are deployed first for commercial versus private use, but on the technology that is more and more common on new vehicles, such as adaptive cruise control, the panel noted.
But the discussion went beyond autonomous vehicles to address a range of topics, from the need for transparency and security in data collection, congestion in cities (Sellers noted that the average traffic speed in Midtown Manhattan is 4.7 miles per hour) and robots.
Mike Beebe, CEO of Bosch startup Mayfield Robotics, brought along a personal robot created by his company called Kuri. Beebe said that his employees all had a strong opinion about the autonomous robot’s gender, but he thinks of Kuri as a she.
Kuri can take photos, play music, blink her eyes and even has a “heart light” with colors to represent various emotions to convey a sense of mood.
When Sellers mentioned concerns about people who might use the robot to fill some type of psychological need, Beebe noted her abilities.
“We think of it as adding a spark of life at home,” Beebe said. “Kuri’s your robot and she does exactly what you want her to do.”
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He noted Kuri’s ability to capture moments on video like him kissing his children before he leaves for the airport.
Discussion also drifted to speculation on flying cars.
Klevorn noted that “the biggest question we get is when will we get flying cars.”
Beebe offered 2035 as a possible date, saying the opportunity is too great to remain untapped for too long.
Klevorn suggested it could be even sooner, noting the burgeoning development of manned drones.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence.
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