Gazing Eyes Is a Weird but Wonderful Idea for Autonomous Vehicles, It Could Save Lives

It might sound silly, but putting eyes on an autonomous vehicle might solve the problem. And we’re not talking about eyes as in video cameras, but actual eyes that pedestrians can see and indicate what the car is “seeing.” Simply put, if the car is not staring at you, you better not walk in front of it. There’s a good chance that it isn’t aware of your presence.

To demonstrate the theory, the researchers put up a study and found that putting eyeballs on an autonomous vehicle can reduce unsafe crossings by up to 64%. The study is serious enough to be published in the Association for Computing Machinery’s Digital Library. Interestingly, eyed-AVs helped men safely cross the street but made no difference for women. This is because women are more cautious, to begin with.

Male participants in the study claimed that the eyes didn’t make a difference, even though they reduced the number of unsafe crossings. On the other hand, the female respondents indicated they felt safer when the car was equipped with big eyeballs. That’s not to say they liked them because both groups scoffed at the idea.

Despite the promising results, the big eyeballs can only focus on one person at a time. There’s no good solution to this problem, and everything that comes to mind would be creepy. More eyes? Meh. Perhaps the eyes can look in different directions, tracking more people at once. That would be awkward. Either way, watch the staged video below and tell us what you think. Some say it’s the worst commercial they’ve seen.