Stay Engaged On Utah Roads With New AI Voice

You have probably had the experience of a long road trip with everyone in the car asleep including your significant other who promised to stay awake and keep you alert. That trip from Utah to Disneyland, especially the part from Las Vegas to Los Angeles can be mind numbing. 

Volkswagen may have your solution. They have announced new cars will have a voice assistant that will talk to you, answer questions, and have a conversation using artificial intelligence from ChatGPT. You can talk to it about your interest in archeology and it will never tell you it is bored to death. 

I’m trying to think if I would want this. It would depend on how good the information the disturbing AI voice would have. I have experimented with ChatGPT and some of the stuff it spews out is not remotely true. It is like having your cousin around who makes stuff up thinking it will impress you. 

VW says it will be easy to use.

There is no need to create a new account, install a new app or activate ChatGPT: The voice assistant is activated by saying "Hello IDA" or pressing the button on the steering wheel.

Volkswagen says the questions you ask will be deleted after and no information will be sent on to some information gathering types. I would imagine some conversations could be mined to create a profile. For instance, the government would realize your ideas on archeology are really boring. 

They also said the AI would not have control over any of the car functions. That would be bad if your car decided it wanted to stop at every roadside attraction. "I don’t care if it is the biggest muffler in the world, I need to get to California." 

I am not an early adapter, so I will let the rest of you try it out. If it is helpful, I will get the version that has all the bugs worked out.