Toyota will invest $1 billion in a California artificial intelligence (AI) research center, where it will develop self-driving car and robotics technology. Some of the research and development (R&D) facility's goals will be to develop products to build accident-free vehicles, and robot tech to make older people safe at home.
The new Toyota Research Institute will be located in Silicon Valley near Stanford University, where the center's 200 employees will work on auto, robot, and AI tech, according to Gizmodo. Giles Pratt will be the facility's head.
On November 6, Friday, Pratt explained at a Tokyo press conference that autonomous vehicles function well in controlled environments. However, they often fail to do other tasks that are easy for human drivers.
For example, human drivers can go anywhere they want. However, self-driving vehicles use GPS, lasers, and sensors to calculate their exact location on a small road or big highway.
The cars use that plethora of data to drive. This causes problems in situations that were not mapped out.
Platt explained that a driverless car seems to be using its AI and digital data to look like it has human intelligence. However, it does not.
Meanwhile, a truly intelligent self-driving car could figure out its location without the help of maps and GPS, even if lane markings changed, for example, according to ComputerWorld. It would just use its AI.
Toyota's new R&D center could allow the company to challenge Google and Apple in building the first fully-functional self-driving car, which could take decades of research. Pratt said that the "race" has just started.