Apple CEO Tim Cook admits that Apple IS building autonomous vehicle technology
Apple IS working on autonomous vehicle technology – but whether that means that the company is planning it’s own (no doubt insanely expensive) ‘Apple car’ or merely the technology underpinning self-driving vehicles remains unclear.
Cook confirmed the long-aired rumours in an interview with Bloomberg conducted during the company’s recent Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) . However, Cook added that getting the technology right remains a significant challenge – and didn’t commit the company to producing autonomous vehicles themselves.
The hyper-wealthy company is looking at autonomous vehicles, admitted Cook, simply because they are a big deal right now, and could be an even bigger deal in the future. ” We’re focusing on autonomous systems. It’s a core technology that we view as very important, ” he told Bloomberg.
“We sort-of see autonomous cars as the mother of all AI projects. It’s probably one of the most difficult AI projects actually to work on. Autonomy is something that is incredibly exciting for us, and we will see where it takes us.
“We’re not saying, from a product view, [exactly] what we will do, but we are saying that it is a core technology that we view as very important.”
However, Cook didn’t go into too much detail, and has been reluctant to provide any further information about its plans.
Cook did add, though, that it was exciting to see the potential for autonomous cars.
Apple will, though, need to do much to make good a perceived deficit in artificial intelligence, compared to Amazon and Google, with its Siri personal assistant considered to have fallen behind both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s own personal assistant technology.
Autonomous vehicles will be many times more complicated still, with implications in terms of liabilities in the event of autonomous vehicle-caused accidents.
Furthermore, while both technology companies, such as Google, and car manufacturers have conducted on-road trials (and even start-ups have joined them) , Apple has yet to even get a vehicle on the road.
