What could possibly go wrong?
Onboard Assistant
General Motors is making use of its existing collaboration with Microsoft by exploring ways to incorporate a ChatGPT-powered assistant into its cars, Reuters reports, confirming an earlier Semafor report.
“ChatGPT is going to be in everything,” GM Vice President Scott Miller told Reuters in an interview.
In other words, the carmaker is looking to cash in on the AI trend by shoehorning an AI chatbot, which has a strong tendency to lie and mislead, into its cars. What could possibly go wrong?
Clearly, very little thought has been put into the idea so far, with Miller spitballing some possible use cases.
Beyond executing simple commands like changing the volume, Miller says a future AI could provide users with information on using a car’s features, be used to program a garage door, or even integrate your virtual calendar of choice.
Miller elaborated to Semafor that this could look like asking the car how to change a tire if one of them became flat, which could then prompt the car to play an instructional video.
Or, perhaps, it could even inform a driver on whether they should keep driving or pull over immediately.
In short, it won’t exactly be KITT from the 80s TV show “Knight Rider,” but it would be more than what cars currently can do.
“This shift is not just about one single capability like the evolution of voice commands, but instead means that customers can expect their future vehicles to be far more capable and fresh overall when it comes to emerging technologies,” a GM spokesperson told Reuters.
Car Tech
Car companies have long had a terminal case of Silicon Valley envy, especially since all-powerful smartphones started making up for lackluster infotainment systems in almost every recently built car on the road today.
For better or worse, incorporating an AI chatbot that could potentially replace a smartphone assistant like Apple’s Siri seems like a natural inevitability for the industry, especially given the general boom of investment in AI technology.
How that will work out with an AI like ChatGPT, which can be unreliable when it comes to dispensing factual information or working within a specific context, remains to be seen.
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