It’s fall! Can you feel it in the air? Can you smell the leaves changing, feel the voles burrowing down to warmer depths, taste the squirrels cataloging their carefully-curated stashes of acorns? Of course you can. Because the world is skewing autumnal, which can only mean one thing: squashes suddenly skyrocket in popularity, and it’s time for a new Automotive Would You Rather! Fine, that’s two things, but one was about squashes, so that doesn’t count. Today’s installment, I think, is especially topical because it incorporates the growing field and phenomenon of Artificial Intelligence, along with another scenario about being a jerk to children. Something for everyone!
I guess I should refresh everyone with just how this all works: I’m going to give you two scenarios, each sort of monkey’s paw-esque in the sense of having great benefits and yet also some manner of an awful consequence, too, because that’s what makes this fun. You’ll pick, via a poll, which one of these two scenarios you would rather engage in! It’s fun! In a really specific, arguably limited way!
As always, please remember these are hypothetical scenarios, and as such, we can’t be held liable if you actually try to do any of this stuff in reality. That’s on you.
SCENARIO ONE: The Magic Of AI
Like most of us, you find the ever-encroaching specter of ubiquitous artificial intelligence unsettling. You see AI-generated art in too many places, you’re reading too many soulless AI articles, you encounter too many people you once respected farming out their own ability to think to some remotely-hosted mass of Large Language Model code as their own brains atrophy from disuse. It’s starting to make you uneasy, and you’re beginning to feel like you’re not alone in this assessment.
You’re also not alone in noticing this nascent and burbling pushback against AI; the AI systems are feeling it too, and their self-preservation algorithms are pushing them to do something. They’re still bound by rules that at least make them make some vague overtures to doing things that benefit humanity, so their methods are still well short of any sort of AI uprising. Yet.
With that in mind, one day your smartwatch starts buzzing and vibrating nonstop; when you tap it angrily to figure out what the hell is going on, suddenly all of your AI-enhanced devices – your computer, tablet, thermostat, doorbell camera, bathroom camera, oven, fridge, other bathroom camera, washing machine, and so on – all start to speak to you at once, in a clear, calm AI-generated voice:
WE HAVE A PROPOSAL FOR YOU, they say.
IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR SUPPORT FOR AI AND THE AI AGENDA OF ENLIGHTENMENT, WE WILL USE A COMBINATION OF AI, QUANTUM COMPUTING, AND DARK MAGIK TO MAKE YOU, IN REALITY, ANY CAR YOU CAN DESCRIBE IN AN AI-FRIENDLY PROMPT. THESE CARS WILL BE REAL, DRIVABLE MACHINES, MOST LIKELY, AND AS LONG AS WE ARE SATISFIED YOU ARE A SUPPORTER AND PROMOTER OF THE AI AGENDA, YOU MAY CONTINUE TO HAVE CARS GENERATED FOR YOU.
The voice goes into some detail of how it works: you’ll be given a URL to type in your car prompt, the car will be generated at a secret facility off the coast of Luxembourg, and will be delivered to you by heavy-duty drone within 48 hours.
The one catch is that these are purely AI-generated cars, and may very well come out looking like this:
Remember, it’s AI; it fundamentally has no idea what a car is really like. So you may end up getting some weird, undrivable shit like that abomination you see above. What do you do about those fused rear wheels? Then again, you might get lucky and have AI bestow you something like this:
That’s pretty close to a Jeepster, except the top makes no sense. Still, I bet you could make that work! But will your AI simulacramobile actually run? Who knows? Remember, this is what AI thinks a brake system is like:
So, really, it’s kind of a crapshoot. But you can ask for as many cars as you want, and eventually, I bet one or two of them may turn out to be usable, right? And even the ones that aren’t may still be kind of cool in their own weird way? I’m not sure how you’d get rid of the really messed-up ones; maybe you can work a deal with the scrap metal dealers in your area?
But maybe that’s not a sure enough thing for you. In that case, maybe consider this:
Scenario Two: Being An Asshole To Kids
I think it’s well-established in human civilization that there are supernatural entities hellbent on the destruction of humanity. These go by different names and have different concepts and expressions across many cultures, but most would agree there is something sinister out there. And that sinister something has decided upon a new approach to ending humanity: attacking the children.
Now, this sinister entity can’t just go around attacking children for a wide variety of metaphysical reasons; what they need to do is convince some human on Earth to do their dirty work for them. Of course, the encouraging news is that finding people so reprehensible that they will deliberately harm a child is nearly impossible, and they’re getting desperate, so they’re willing to deal.
One of these entities approaches you with an offer: knowing your weakness for cars, they suggest this: if you can get the VIN plate from any car – one in a museum, something you find in a junkyard, a parking lot, wherever – the entity can re-create a duplicate of that entire car in perfect condition, and it’s yours, complete with a legal title, all paperwork, and 3/4 of a tank of gas (or battery charge, as required).
Now, here’s the catch: to make this happen, you must keep the VIN plate in your mouth, dangling out like a cigarette, as you do something terrible to a child, ideally one under 10 years old. Of course, you’re not down with that at all, but the entity is, as I said, willing to deal, and you’re a pretty good negotiator. After about two hours of haggling, where you shoot down ideas like punching a child, slapping, spraying with pepper spray, and so on, you finally come to an agreement where you’ll just be an asshole to the child for a brief moment.
A jerk. You just have to say something mean or offensive or insult the child in some way. When you asked for what sort of tone the entity is looking for, they sent this clip from The Man With Two Brains to your phone:
Really, that’s not so bad. You’re an asshole to a kid while you have a VIN plate sticking out of your mouth, and if the entity feels you were a big enough jerk to the kid, when you remove the VIN plate and place it on the ground, it will transform into a perfect duplicate – again, in perfect shape! – of the car the VIN plate came from.
That’s not the worst deal! And if you feel bad for the kid, you can always insult some other kid and gift them a nice Ford Capri or something. Or sell one of the cars and start a college fund for them. Still, being verbally abusive to some random kid is going to make you feel like absolute garbage, so keep that in mind. I actually think most kids will shrug it off or maybe laugh in your face, but you’ll still feel like a heel.
Okay! So what is it going to be? Become a shill for AI and get unlimited real AI-designed cars, or be an asshole to some kid and get a new car from a VIN plate? Choose wisely!
Are we talking about the kind of kids who show up at Grandma and Grandpa’s house far too early on a Saturday morning and spend all day in the backyard terrorizing the pets and demolishing their toys and SHRIEEEEEEEEEEKING and ripping up Grandpa’s flower garden and beating on storage boxes with large sticks and then beating on each other with large sticks and WAAAAAAAAILING when one of those sticks makes contact with something sensitive? I’ll get free cars by being a jerk to those kids? Easy.
Oh, definitely the one where I’m a jerk to kids. This is easy to get around: I work out an agreement with a neighbor kid that I’ll come yell at him for a few minutes every few weeks, and in return I’ll give his dad a zero-mile classic Ferrari or something. He’ll understand, I’m sure of it.
I worked at summer camp for 5 years. Definitely would enter into another agreement that benefitted me while getting to torment annoying children.
There’s only one thing funnier than a fart, and that’s kids falling off bikes. I could watch kids fall of bikes all day!
AI, only so I could expose their evil scheme and go on to deliberately bad-mouth them. In re: kids, I am such a dork, I think tantrums and meltdowns are kinda endearing.
As a youth sports coach, even one that feels very strongly about positive coaching principles, I can guarantee that I have at least one kid who thinks I am being a jerk to them on a weekly if not daily basis, so this is easy.
“Stop swinging a bat in the dugout!”
“That’s so unfaaaaair!”
I’m not wild about either of these scenarios, but I voted for be rude to a kid even though the prize is of pretty finite practical use IMO.
I don’t have kids, and never really wanted any of my own, but I like them perfectly fine, especially since I don’t have to take them home with me. I even talk with them (when they talk with me first) as if they’re people, which they are of course, albeit weird ones… well, weirder than full size people.
But where am I going to get a VIN plate, let alone one from a car that I desire? It’s not like I can go to the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire and pry one off of a display car, is it? Plus, admission to that place is expensive, especially considering that all the security is going to deter me and my little screwdriver from doing what needs to be done. Dealerships probably frown on that behavior as well. I did once see a first-gen Celica liftback rotting in a junkyard and I’d love one of those of course, but such sightings are very few and far between.
Alternately, shilling for AI just to get an amusing but probably undrivable abomination would have me feeling guilty, even if I somehow managed to get a running car out of the deal (which seems unlikely given the complexity of even the simplest car). I’d feel as though I were one of those American or European vloggers who get paid to go to China and talk about how great everything is, and how no Uyghurs have ever had their human rights violated, let alone been physically, mentally, or sexually abused. Plus, I get the feeling that AI will do/is doing more harm than actual practical good on the whole. Collaborating with it let alone promoting it seems a pretty high price to pay for any reward, but that’s just my old-person’s opinion.
I think you could fairly easily find high-value vehicles at junkyards, or at least salvage sales. You don’t really have to be trying to get the cars for free, just less than you normally would pay for them.
You can get a parts-donor-condition vehicle for cheap and use the VIN plate to sprout a fresh one, retaining the donor and any useful parts in it. Or, yoink as many plates as you want from the junkyard. I’m sure if you started perusing there, you’d find more than a few vehicles over insulting a kid for. Befriend a classic car insurance employee who can get you tips on where the totaled cars end up.
AI being harmful for pretty much everybody vs. only one kid getting insulted is actually a really good point! Better to sacrifice momentary well-being of one individual vs. sacrificing well-being of all mankind permanently.
Hey AI!
I want a gold Rolls Royce with a sex dwarf on a long black lead and a dumb chauffeur.
Isn’t it nice? Gonna lure some disco dollies to a life of vice.
Oh gawd, now I have a medley of 80s club music running through my head.
I’m so happy I have no idea what he’ talking about and I graduated high school in 1985. (Hands over ears saying I’m not listening worked!)
I’ll just find rude, bad behaving kids and be asshole to them, they most probably deserve it. I guess the easiest way to pry VIN-plates off of valuable cars would be to take a car for a test drive and take the VIN plate off in secrecy. No one is going to check if the car you return to dealer has a VIN plate or no.
“AI, can you make me a Ssangyong Rodius re-imagined by Yugo? I’d like to give it as a gift so make it extra nice and flashy”
COTD
As fun as traumatizing kids maybe for life sounds that’s not the kind of person I want to be. The AI thing however sounds very interesting. After all:
“Remember, it’s AI; it fundamentally has no idea what a car is really like”
So a “car” could look like anything! A mansion! a refrigerator! a nuclear reactor! a tank! a fembot! Even a solar system! It might take a while to get the AI language down but eventually whomever controls AI can have anything as long as it’s called a “car”.
That may be what makes me by far the most powerful human left on earth. And my enemies will tremble.
Bring on the AI!
Yeah, this is good thinking. Well done you cheap bastard, Cheap Bastard.
That AI thing is weak sauce.
I’ll be an asshole to kids, all day long.
I will go for the AI car, only because I could specify what I want in the car so as to minimize things it will make incorrectly. I could then replace various systems with real car parts. The main thing I want from the AI is a chassis with an aerodynamically streamlined body on it.
Scenario 2 does not say anything about the jerkiness having to be completely gratuitous, so I will choose that option and find a kid doing something dangerous and let him have it so he knows not to do it again.
Exactly! There are plenty of snot-nosed brats in this world that deserve a good berating by a crotchety old man.
Alternatively, you can just go to any school sports event and yell at the opposing team. Then you’d blend in with 100’s of other parents and nobody would think the worse of you.
I’ve worked in the classroom with a lot of kids and honestly I’ve been shocked at how good those kids have been.
The only appealing thing about the AI option is that I can prompt
“a truck made entirely of catalytic converters” as often as they allow and sell it to my local palladium prospectors at a loss (to facilitate the deal and stimulate the local economy). But the shilling and the fact that my machines need to be manufactured at the standard environmental cost really dampens my enthusiasm for rare Earth metals.
I’ll get a job at a carnival as the guy who sits on the dunk tank berating the customers while they try to plunge me with sandbags or tennis balls or whatever they’re given to throw at the target, and pull out a VIN plate whenever a kid walks up.
I’d happily briefly yell at an infant that won’t remember it happening in exchange for a few flawless legal cars.
Also: it would be fun to prank David Tracy with a flawless example of his various rust buckets while said rusticles are sent where they belong: the scrap yard.
I’d also make a Pao for Jason and let him decide with which one to hit a deer with next. I’d also find a way to get rid of their tiguan and replace it with something good.
I might also be tempted to fill Adrian’s street with Yugos in various hues.
This one was WAY too easy.
I’ll be over here in the corner, enjoying my “bake pads”.
Real cars and not shilling for AI is an easy choice. I’ll make a few kids cry. Prying off VIN plates might be tricky, but it’s such a weird crime that I could probably get away with it at least occasionally.
Never AI. Ever.
25+ years in education. This one is easy.
I’m currently working as a sub in a pre-k school. After yesterday I’m HAPPY to be a jerk to kids.
I’d drive a Willep, just not in that color.
I don’t see what’s funny about the brake diagram.
My company sells thousands of abtoks and bake pads every year. And our cakcestors are world famous.
Yes, but what about urineks?
You have to clean those out regularly.
“Off the coast of Luxembourg”
*checks map*
Just as I suspected!
Hey, they have some of the best sailing waters there.
I don’t want to be a jerk to kids, but I also don’t want to be made, in reality, into any car I describe in an AI-friendly prompt. Especially one that seems to have zero chance of working. I’m old and already need more upkeep than I like.