Look ma, no hands!
While it’s certainly a challenge to develop hybrid vehicles and electronic cars, scientists in Germany are working on a much more ambitious, and difficult, project. The German team has created a car that can be controlled by thoughts alone (video below) and now want to know if the mind-controlled vehicle can be used for everyday driving.
The thought-powered car works like this: a “driver” puts on a headset similar to those used for playing videogames and then thinks about which direction he wants the car to go (right, left, straight, etc.) and the speed in which he’d like to travel (faster, slower). Sensors on the headset then transmit this information to the car using wireless technology.
While a mind-controlled vehicle sounds cool, what happens when people think left but mean right or when road ragers briefly (or not so briefly) fantasize about crashing their vehicle into the jerk that cut them off?
Researchers seem aware of these issues, stating in the promotional video that the current mind-controlled car is simply “proof of concept” and acknowledging that there is still “a long way to go” before people can safely and effectively take control of vehicles with their minds. They also helpfully advise viewers not to try driving a thought-controlled vehicle at home.
The AutoNOMOS team, part of the Artificial Intelligence Group of the Freie Universität in Berlin, is the organization behind the mind-blowing project. Here’s a video of the thought-powered car in action. What do you think?
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