While many waited for the 2016 Prius to make news this week, Toyota made another announcement that may have went under the radar for most people. Toyota announced that it is investing $50 million over the next five years in a research initiative that includes partners such as Stanford and MIT. The research initiative will study artificial intelligence (AI) and how it can be applied to future generations of vehicles and robotics.
Along with this major announcement, Toyota also revealed the recent hiring of Dr. Gill Pratt, former program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Pratt was the leader of DARPA's renowned Robotics Challenge events. It's speculated that Pratt was heavily courted by other entities pursuing autonomous vehicles such as Google. Instead, Pratt chose to direct the AI efforts for Toyota, which took the AI community by surprise.
Dr. Pratt recently sat down with Doug Newcomb of Forbes magazine to talk about this future endeavor. To read the full story and interview, Click Here.
