Is this the future of in-car navigation?

If AIDA ever sees the light of day, the way we're issued commands in the car may change forever. This robot is being designed to rise from your car's dashboard, look at you with puppy dog eyes and issue its commands.

Picture from AIDA

Car maker Volkswagen and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have joined forces to produce, what could be, the future of in-car navigation. AIDA (Affective Intelligent Driving Agent) rises from the car’s dashboard to emote different expressions based on how the driver is feeling. These expressions are determined by analyzing the results of a series of sensors placed in the steering wheel and on the outside of the car. The plan is make it as friendly as a driving companion, but without the backseat driving. As well as the emotions, AIDA will be able to provide you with assorted routes that will intelligently adapt to your needs. The plan is that as well as getting you from A to B, it could determine that you need to refuel or go to the shops and reroute you accordingly. These automatic waypoints could be predetermined based on your preferences and driving habits.

Picture from AIDA

Research shows that drivers perform better when there is a passenger in the car and the aim of AIDA is to make it realistic enough that we want to do as it asks because of its puppy-dog eyes and hang-dog expressions and not because it whines at us.

Gill Leshed, a researcher at Cornell University, but not associated with the AIDA project, believes that the social dynamics of the car could change and is quoted as saying "It's not just sitting in the back, it's sitting in a very dominant, active place in the car," says Leshed. "It's going to change the different roles and responsibilities for each person who rides in the car." Just as we each respond to others differently, individual drivers are expected to form different relationships with AIDA Of course Volkswagen aren’t the only manufacturer to think of this idea, Nissan and Pioneer are working on their own dashboard mounted passengers. But, the question remains, would you rather be told what to do by a Wall-E style character or the disembodied voice from your current GPS?