Intel has invested a hefty amount in developing autonomous driving technology this year. Now, the company is gearing towards conditioning the consuming public to let go of their fear of self-driving cars. To this end, the company got help from no other than basketball superstar LeBron James, who starred it the tech company's newest ad.
Intel describes James in the ad as a fearless person. However, when his car pulls up at the drive way with no one in the driver's seat, the NBA star gave an automatic "nope" to the idea.
After being told that it is safe as the car sees 80 times better than people, James gets into the self-driving vehicle. By the end of the 30-second ad, a smiling James is seen saying "I'm keeping this," pertaining to the autonomous car.
The ad is part of Intel's campaign to popularize and create a market for self-driving vehicles. The company is predicting that the future self-driving market will eventually grow to be a multi-trillion one, and part of the early task is to convince consumers that self-driving cars are not dangerous.
Kathy Winter, Intel's vice president and general manager of automated driving, made a sensible argument for automated cars. "Society's fear of driverless cars is somewhat baffling to me," she said. "Given that car crashes attributable to human error cause more than 1 million vehicle deaths every year, it's those human-driven cars people should be afraid of. Yet all of us today get behind the wheel and simply trust that the cars coming toward them in the opposite lane will stay where they're supposed to. From my point of view, unless those are self-driving cars, we should all be terrified."
While still in its early stages, Intel is only expected to ramp up the campaign to pave way for its vision of driverless transport.
