This driverless car can harness the power of IBM Watson

Finally, someone on public transit you'll actually enjoy talking to.

Local Motors, creators of the world's first 3D-printed car, unveiled Thursday morning debuted its latest creation, a driverless car that incorporates IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) technology called Olli.

Olli is capable of carrying up to 12 passengers, without a human driver. What's more, with Watson riding shotgun so to speak, riders can naturally interact with the car.

Local Motors is doing more than simply showing a concept car, as of Thursday, Olli is around the streets of Washington, D.C., and it will be deployed in Miami and Las Vegas later in 2016.

Once onboard, passengers can request to be driven to a specific location, discuss the route and, of course, ask Olli about itself -- all in natural conversation. More than playing the role of digital tour guide, Olli's ability to casually interact with riders is aimed to make the ride in an autonomous car more relaxing.

Certainly, such a vehicle seems super futuristic and at least a bit strange. However, it's not too far fetched to imagine that Olli points the direction of future public transit systems.

Arguably, it might be a decade or more before municipalities adopt such tech across the nation. That said, more well-funded and forward-looking communities like Beverly Hills, which plans to implement driverless cars as apart of its public transit system within the next decade, could adopt Olli-like vehicles sooner than you might think.

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