Apple CEO Tim Cook has finally spoken out publicly about the company’s secretive autonomous car plans, confirming that it is indeed working on the technology. It’s the first time the firm has acknowledged that such a program even exists.
Cook told Bloomberg that Apple was focusing on autonomous systems, viewing it as an important core technology. The brand sees it as the mother of all AI projects. Cook went as far as to call it one of the most difficult AI projects to work on.
However, Cook didn’t specify what Apple was actually going to do with its self-driving car technology. The company plans to see where the system will take it, choosing not to definitively state what it’s getting up to from a product point of view.
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Based on these responses, it seems Apple isn’t looking to build its own car just yet. This wasn’t the case last year. Project Titan, the internal codename for the endeavor, was initially conceived as a way to make an autonomous car from scratch. After much turmoil, the firm chose to retool and focus on the tech underlying such vehicles.
Cook thinks there is a major disruption looming within the automobile world thanks to ride-hailing, electric vehicles, and self-driving cars, pointing out that these 3 “vectors of change” are happening within the same time frame. Apple isn’t the only one interested in this intersection, with the likes of Google and Uber also heavily investing in the sector.