Co-drivers wanted: MIT, Volkswagen create ultimate dashboard assistant

October 29, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

aidaAIDA, the Affective Intelligent Driving Agent, is pronounced Ay-ee-da, three syllables. The dashboard-mounted driving buddy looks like a cross between a Star Wars extra and Kevin Spacey’s GERTY personal attendant in the film Moon, stripped down to a head-like interface that talks at you while you drive.

AIDA puts a lot of processing power and software smarts into something that seems simple: It optimizes your driving route home, with three advantages over doing it yourself: First, AIDA gets real-time traffic updates. Second, it doesn’t get distracted or forgetful the way a human driver or assistant would. Third, it doesn’t just dodge traffic jams — it’s smart about tasks you need to perform as a driver. It notices that you are really low on gas, and steers you to a gas station before guiding you to a grocery store that will let you get home in time to start dinner.

This kind of in-car assistant has been far more popular than I’d ever expected, because I hate always being scheduled. (It’s why I’m a writer instead of a CEO.) I’m the outlier, though. Navigational assistants are fast becoming as standard as iPod docks in new cars. Among the Media Lab’s many demo projects, this one seems guaranteed to appear in the real world as a working product.

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Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Eric Wittman
    Interesting point about traffic, in European countries like Germany, if your car has GPS, it automatically taps into the public traffic data and shows that information on your GPS system. We have that data in the US but no one has done proper integration with in-car systems and/or made it an actual affordable services for consumers.
  • sam
    Maybe it will work in the real world where people buy "Driving Home for Dummies" or "Warning Lights for for Dummies?"

    Possibly the worst use of AI I've seen. Applying technology to spaces we don't need it is a bit of a wank.