Honda and Softbank Partner to Create Cars that Can Read Emotions

Honda and Softbank, the Japanese telecom giant that owns Sprint, are teaming up to build cars that talk and read human emotions, Engadget reports.

At a press conference, Honda representatives expressed hopes that they could synergistically use Softbank’s expertise in robotics and AI to enhance their production cars. Such cars could utilize Software’s humanoid Pepper robot, designed to provide happiness and companionship to humans, for instance to interact with drivers and assess their emotions using its internal sensors and cameras.

One of Pepper’s key functions is to read and gauge the emotional temperament of its human companions and calibrate its responses appropriately.

Such a car would be able to convey advice to its passengers autonomously, analyzing their speech and data of their surroundings, in order to converse with them. It could do everything from offering helpful suggestions on where to park to providing companionship on long and lonesome road trips, Reuters notes. The arrangement has already invited inevitable comparisons to KITT from the television series Knight Rider, and promises to create a tighter partnership between human and car.

Reuters notes that Softbank has been making many aggressive inroads into AI and robotics, with the aim of providing super-intelligent robots that serve human needs. An emotionally intelligent car would be an interesting addition to the ever-expanding internet of things, a vast network of interconnected and communicating devices.