ChatGPT Will Not Make Your Cars Smart
At the ongoing electronics trade fair CES 2024, German automaker Volkswagen (VW) announced that it will integrate ChatGPT in its fleet. The AI chatbot will be available across VW’s lineup, including the automaker’s family of electric vehicles. While the US is also being considered, currently, the feature will be rolled out in Europe only. However, VW is not the first company to do so. In June 2023, Mercedes-Benz added the controversial conversational bot to its MBUX infotainment system. Around 900,000 US owners of models that use MBUX could opt into a beta program, but it has been called a poor integration of generative AI due to the lack of usefulness. Users have pointed out that they don’t see the point of saying “Hey Mercedes” when there are dedicated buttons for AC/radio right there. But the platform is yet to mature, given it’s only six months old. General Motors (which has a struggling self-driving subsidiary named Cruise) said last March that it was working on a virtual personal assistant using AI models behind ChatGPT. French luxury automaker DS also took great pride in being the first carmaker in Europe to integrate ChatGPT in the infotainment system. The tech is free for the first six months, starting October 19, 2023 (for 20,000 people as a pilot run). Future pricing plans have not been disclosed. Tryst with Privacy The worrisome factor with the integration of ChatGPT in cars is related to privacy. Even though Mercedes has been loud and clear about its concern over user data, it retains and uses your chats with the GPT. The company’s official blog stated, “The voice command data collected is stored in the Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Cloud, where it is anonymised and analysed.” The statement further notes that Mercedes’ developers can sneak a peek at your conversations to develop the voice control better in future. These insights from the beta will be used to launch large language models in more markets and languages. ChatGPT is the prime concern here. Since the piece of technology (which nobody asked for) was released, we have seen it get banned, leak personal information, and be the most-resisted technology in the history of Hollywood. The human-mimicking technology is an ethical and data privacy nightmare. Moreover, combining it with cars is even worse, given that cars are the worst product category Mozilla Foundation has ever reviewed for privacy. The 25 car brands that failed the privacy review included VW, Mercedes-Benz, KIA and General Motors. According to the research, these brands overreached in their policies around data collection and use; some even included caveats about obtaining highly invasive information, like users’ sexual history and genetic information. Generative AI paired with these existing privacy invasions doesn’t sound like the best choice. Pre-ChatGPT Tech Generative AI is fascinating, but its use in cars is still unclear. A car is a well-constrained environment—made for driving, listening to music, and getting where we need to go. For certain instances, voice interface is the easiest way to change a song or get directions. ChatGPT can summarise and generate more existing content and write or plagiarise poetry. But how often do you do these things while driving or in the car? The core issue with the technology continues to exist given its lack of benefits, and indeed, no driver has asked for this AI feature. More questions pop up, like if you sell your car, what happens to all your chats and interactions with the AI bot? Do you need a new “licence” for it? And what if a new owner wants to ask follow-up questions based on previous chats? Kai Gruenitz, the Volkswagen brand’s board member for technical development, said, “I think what our customers are really looking for is seamless, intuitive usage of their car,” regarding the ChatGPT plugin. The tech has appeared to be called “revolutionary” at certain times since its release. Carmakers are excited about integrating the popular technology but a year ago, they were rushing into the metaverse at full speed. Before that it was achieving autonomy which has caused several severe accidents. Putting the brakes on and navigating the tech landscape as per their user’s need would be a wiser choice for now.
At the ongoing electronics trade fair CES 2024, German automaker Volkswagen (VW) announced that it will integrate ChatGPT in its fleet.
At the ongoing electronics trade fair CES 2024, German automaker Volkswagen (VW) announced that it will integrate ChatGPT in its fleet.
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Tasmia is a tech journalist at AIM, looking to bring a fresh perspective to emerging technologies and trends in data science, analytics, and artificial intelligence.