Are you ready to co-exist with artificial intelligence and robots?

Toyota, one of the biggest automobile manufacturers is employing artificial intelligence to make a futuristic city for 2,000 staff members and families. Yes, of course, the city will be powered by robots as well. The city will be governed by an operating system and will have roads dedicated for self-driving vehicles to carry on without any hassle.

Toyota has begun laying the foundation for a 175-acre smart city in Japan. The company says that artificial intelligence and futuristic technologies will act as a ‘living laboratory” which raises many eyebrows. Being built at the base of Mount Fuji, the “Woven City” will be situated approximately 62 miles from Tokyo.

The aim of building such a city is to serve as a testing ground for modern technology that can be established across other urban environments like robotics, AI, and interconnected smart homes.

Toyota announced this futuristic project at CES 2020 in January last year. The company had said that the city will have three types of roads which will be connected at the ground level – one road for pedestrians, one for pedestrians using their personal vehicles like e-scooters, and one road just for self-driving cars. While these roads will be for the public, the city will also have one conventional road underneath the city that will be used to move goods.

In 2018, Toyota launches its self-driving vehicle, the e-Palette which is expected to be the Woven City project’s main transport. Toyota said that their e-Palette is “scalable and customizable” for various functions like ride-sharing, delivery services, mobile offices, and even hotels.

The 2,000 staff and families will live in smart homes with AI technology and various integrated robotic systems to assist everyday life and sensor-based artificial intelligence to monitor people’s health and other basic needs.

The project is divided into phases and the first phase will have about 360 residents of varying age groups, rising to 2,000 including a few Toyota employees and their families along with scientists and inventors who will keep checking the effectiveness of the technological solutions.

Will all the futuristic technology cause hindrance to human connections? Toyota has said “encouraging human connection will be an equally important aspect of this experience. Building a complete city from the ground up, even on a small scale like this is a unique opportunity to develop future technologies, including a digital operating system for the city’s infrastructure.”

About the AI technology, Mr Toyoda said, “With people, buildings, and vehicles all connected and communicating with each other through data sensors, we will be able to test connected AI technology, in both the virtual and the physical realms, maximizing its potential.

Concept Of An Interconnected Smart Home

A smart home lets the homeowner control all the smart devices remotely from anywhere with a steady internet connection. This means that a person can control security functions, temperature, lighting, etc. remotely.  Smart home devices come with self-learning skills to learn the owner’s schedules and make choices on their own accordingly. If a smart home is fitting with smart lights, it automatically turns the light on and off, saving electricity. Smart home security systems intimate the owner when it detects an expected motion. These small yet effective conveniences make human lives easier.

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With an aim to ease the daily life of the elderly population, Toyota’s robotics division at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has developed a unique robot to handle house chores. We have already seen the company develop a helper robot last year. Now, the new Toyota “Ceiling-Assistant” will hang from the, of course, ceiling and will be able to clean dishes and do other simple house chores.

One of the reasons the Japan-based automobile-maker was inspired to build the said ceiling robot is the Japanese notion of Ikigai, which means every person’s life should have meaning and purpose. So, as the global population above the age of 65 is said to double in the next three decades, according to the UN, Toyota aims to aid this graying population with its robotic technologies.

Now, coming to the ceiling-robot, Toyota says that it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance human abilities. A “human-centered approach turns typical AI philosophy on its head: instead of replacing human beings,” adds the company.

One of the major benefits of the ceiling-assistant robot, compared to ground robots, is the management of space in a house. As it uses the floor above, that is the ceiling of a house, the ground remains clear for the children and the pets to freely roam around. Also, when not needed, users can easily tuck it away into the ceiling to better manage home space.

The company, as we know, visualizes a future with smart homes integrated with many different kinds of robots. So, the company thinks that these new ceiling robots will already be there inside the smart homes of future cities. Toyota showcased the robot in an online presentation recently. You can check out the video right here:

Now, although there are a lot of benefits to this new robot, there also are some major drawbacks. For instance, the company uses virtual reality to train the robot. This means a human operator performs the featured actions physically using a VR kit and those movements get stored in the robot’s memory. Hence, these ceiling-bots aren’t very smart.

Moreover, the fact that every home has a distinct design-language, mastering each of the environment of the homes will be a major challenge for the robot.

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Chinese autonomous vehicle startup Pony.ai said Wednesday that it has received a $400 million investment from Japanese automaker Toyota, upping the ante in its push to develop automated vehicles.

The Guangzhou-based company will use the fresh capital to boost the development and commercialization of driverless cars, which will mainly feature what’s called “Level 4 autonomy.”

The Society of Automotive Engineers divides autonomous driving technology into six levels ranging from 0 to 5. Level 4 autonomy allows a car to be in almost total control all the time without any human intervention.

The new investment marks an extension of the two companies’ partnership initially forged in August 2019, when Pony.ai and Toyota joined forces to conduct road tests of autonomous vehicles in Beijing and Shanghai using the Japanese automaker’s Lexus-branded cars.

According to a statement published on Pony.ai’s public WeChat account, the two partners will also explore a possible partnership on mobility services.

In 2018, Pony.ai started piloting its PonyPilot project in the southern city of Guangzhou, testing a fleet of 100 autonomous cars used for taxi-hailing.

Toyota is also a financial backer of Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing. In July last year, the Japanese carmaker announced that it would invest $600 million in Didi and their new joint venture for mobility services. Didi also plans to test its robotaxi services in Shanghai this year.

Earlier this week, China’s National Development and Reform Commission and several other government agencies published an autonomous vehicle development plan, setting a goal for 2025, by which time the country should achieve mass production of vehicles with “conditional” self-driving capabilities.

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