Xconomy: Affectiva Launches A.I. Tech to Help Cars Sense Your Emotions

Efforts to develop self-driving vehicles have largely focused on tracking what's going on outside the cars--think laser-based sensors to track other vehicles and digital mapping technologies to help navigate. Now, the industry is turning some of its attention to technologies that sense what's going on inside the vehicle. An initial goal is to better monitor driver alertness to help reduce the number of car accidents. But if fully autonomous vehicles one day become the norm, having technology that can understand the mood and preferences of passengers might enable the vehicle to automatically make adjustments that improve the riding experience. The jury is still out on whether vehicle occupants will prefer that to controlling changes themselves, but companies are trying to develop the technological capabilities anyway. "All of our technologies and our devices are becoming conversational and perceptual--even our car," says Rana el Kaliouby (pictured above), co-founder and CEO of Affectiva.