Artificial-Intelligence Developers: We're Thinking beyond Autonomous Cars

Advances in artificial intelligence are changing the way automakers and their suppliers think about autonomous technology. Boosts in brainpower are not only accelerating the timeframe to bring self-driving technology to the marketplace, they're also broadening the scope of companies' ambition. "We're not just talking about autonomous cars," said Stefan Sommer, CEO of ZF Group. "We are talking about autonomous everything." At the CES technology show in Las Vegas, Sommer unveiled his company's newest product, an electronic control unit that contains artificial-intelligence software tailored for self-driving vehicles, including not only cars but also trains, buses, forklifts, trucks, tractors, and mining equipment.