Tesla Backseat Driver

Passenger Voice Controls in a Post-Stearing Wheel Autonomous EV Future

Provide a reasonable degree of passenger agency in fully autonomous vehicles through a voice-based interface that listens for natural language commands and directions, transforming the traditional driver-vehicle relationship into a collaborative dialogue between passenger and AI while preserving privacy through transparent audio monitoring.

Date

Oct 30, 2024

Challenge

Passengers will require some form of input to maintain a sense of agency while autonomous vehicles drive them around.

Solution

Provide a passively listening agentic voice interface for passengers to provide high level directions to the vehicle with their voice

Insights

  • The speed of sound is faster than human reflexes by 3.8 orders of magnitude
  • Complements Tesla's existing multimodal AI models and would add audio as an additional modality
  • Voice identity, maybe with sonic localization to the front seat, would likely be a prerequisite
  • Muting the microphone and transparency when the agent is listening is critical for privacy