AI 'friends' will help you pass the time on autonomous drives

When autonomous cars hit the market, manually driven ones won't suddenly disappear. It'll be decades before self-driving vehicles take over the roads completely. That means the horrible traffic you're already stuck in might get a little better, but not by much. So instead of filling those moments by clutching the steering wheel and wishing death upon other drivers, you'll have a bunch of free time, and that's an opportunity for automakers to grab your eyes and ears. The last thing automakers want is for bored drivers to default to their current time killer: their phone.