I guess our car is not our private space anymore, and we are not given a choice when buying a car from Volkswagen.
I don’t know if this is hilarious or pathetically sad. AI has become the current “must have” craze in the tech world and it’s baffling watching every company try and find a way to shoehorn some form of it into their products and then try and justify its existence.
Cerence Chat Pro from technology partner Cerence Inc. is the foundation of the new function, which offers a uniquely intelligent, *automotive-grade *ChatGPT integration.
Why the hell would I want this?
automotive-grade ChatGPT
How much you want to bet this means its answer to everything car related is “take it to the dealership for service”?
- Hey ChatGPT, is it normal for my A4 to be burning this much oil? …
- Yes.
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“Hi car. Tell me what data about me you’re sending back to VW.”
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I’m sorry perishthethought. I can’t do that."
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The article says they delete any questions after they’re asked, but I’d prefer to disable any ChatGPT features put in front of me.
Ask anyone who works in IT and they’ll confirm nothing gets ever deleted from all records and backups.
If it’s free ChatGPT everything is recorded and can’t be deleted or removed from their database. You can however delete data and opt-out of saving conversations, sharing conversation data with OpenAI if you have a paid account.
Maybe deleted from the productive database (if at all, as Reddit for example just flagged “deleted” comments apparently in the past).
But Backups, does data really get removed from backups? I don’t think so.
For ChatGPT Enterprise it’s one of their selling points. It implicitly states that individual and free accounts lack any of these privacy protections.
I have a fantasy where I’m a powerful executive at Volkswagen. I’m in a meeting where this idea is presented. I ask who thought of it. Someone raises their hand. I smile broadly. I ask who else thinks it’s a good idea. Others raise their hands. I call security and have all those people escorted out of the building. Those of us who remain set about manufacturing small, efficient & affordable electric vehicles with manual windows & door locks, and a not a single touchscreen anywhere. The End
Then your stock crashes in spite of your good sales because trading bots short your stock as you said negative things about the new thing in vogue and are thus considered “unable to innovate”. Some other company acquires yours despite the good actual sales you might be having, and before you realize, what was once your company is back on the current hype train.
The system works because no one man, not even a “powerful executive” can change it easily.
I take my ill-gotten gains and fuck off to another country, perhaps the USA, and buy up a small little-known automotive start up that has some promising IP. When my car company is bigger than all the others combined, I don’t spread the love around, but instead allow them all to stew in the juices of their mistakes. While I’m at it, I might buy a social media company and do everything possible to run my entire empire into the ground.
Hey I’ve seen this one before!
In case we needed yet another reason to avoid that company. I have no idea why they’re so successful despite being absolutely despicable.
They have a knack for building cars that people want, are usually late to new developments, but then blow the competition out of the water in terms of sales, because their cars (prior to the infotainment debacles and cost-cutting measures of recent years) tend to be extremely polished, are comfortable, economical and handle very well. The Golf GTI in particular is perhaps the perfect embodiment of the company’s capabilities.
Personally, I think some of their past clout, especially in regards to quality, has been overstated though. We’ve considered new VWs long before recent quality problems, but they left a worse impression than comparable French cars and in absolutely every way. Still, they have been very consistent for a long time and appealed to buyers with a “no experiments” kind of mindset, who just want a predictable rolling appliance.
Yeah I knew someone was going to respond to my rhetorical “I have no idea” and explain it like I actually care. It’s like saying I have no idea why people buy Microsoft or use Twitter despite them being despicable. Obviously there are lot of things about them that a lot of people like. Obviously not everyone knows about all the despicable things these companies have done and continue to do. Obviously not everyone would care enough to stop using them even if they did know.
But it still frustrates me. I wish the world was a place where companies like VW couldn’t possibly exist because their own employees would never let them do the things they did, much less their customers or the regulators who are supposed to protect us despite ourselves. But, alas, we do not. And I have no idea why. (<— Rhetorical! Nobody has to try to explain why.)
I don’t know about you, but someone who doesn’t care doesn’t write two paragraphs. My don’t care limit is one paragraph max.
