Project Petrolhead

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

If the internet is to be believed, AI is the future of technology. I respectfully (and sometimes disrespectfully) disagree. Between generative AI cross-referencing a huge pile of stolen images and using them to pump out an approximated amalgamation of what it thinks a person looks like and Large Language Models that have overtaken search engines with the hallucinated facts and “uncanny valley” spelunking prose, AI is little more than a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.

When it comes to the motor industry, the promise of AI seems to be everywhere as of late. There’s Telsa’s Full Self Driving (FSD) which is now apparently just 2 years away and has been 2 years away for the last decade. From what I can see, this technology is being used to push driverless cars and busses to market, products that, unbeknownst to Mr. Musk, already exist. They’re called Taxis and Trains. Aside from this, has anyone actually considered that some people quite like driving and don’t fancy palming off the job to R2-D2? I know I don’t.

A little lower down the improbability scale, we have AI Assistants. From the fairly innocuous implementation of Google in the latest Polestar vehicles, through the annoying examples from Mercedes and BMW (which use the name of the car as their trigger word, so God help you if you’re talking to your passenger about your new Merced-SHUSH!) we land with Mini and Spike. Spike is a dog. Except, of course, he isn’t. Spike is a selection of ones and zeroes designed to look like a dog. Specifically, an English Bulldog, although I don’t remember them being blue. Does he know any tricks? Well, sort of. He can change the radio station and adjust the cabin temperature of your new Mini Cooper (I employ a similar solution in the Jag, except it’s a Cocker Spaniel and he just presses the buttons with his nose).

All this business of self-driving cars and digital dogs are simply getting in the way of why people enjoy cars. Each layer of technology we place between the driver and the world around them does nothing more than further numb the experience of driving, letting you become further and further disconnected from the road. Why not give drivers features they might actually use that won’t distract from the small child stepping out in front of them? Like a Teasmade that has your cuppa ready and your windscreen defrosted before you set off? Or maybe Vertical Takeoff to help with increasing traffic problems? No? Just the dog then I suppose.