Maybe We Shouldn’t Give Cars Emotions: COTD

Car enthusiasts like to say that their cars have soul and sometimes describe their favorite vehicles with the attributes of a living thing. I get it, I treat my Smarts like they’re the car equivalent of chihuahuas, but maybe we shouldn’t want our cars to actually feel.

David Tracy wrote about how Faraday Future rebadged a random minivan and then slapped a giant screen on it so it can “emote” or whatever. Aside from answering a question nobody asked, are we sure that we want cars to “feel?”

What me?:

So I’m driving along all road raged, my wife is terrified, one kid is sick in the back, while the other is having the time of their life in the roller-coaster ride. The dog doesn’t care because it’s one brain cell is occupied with breathing.

How does it display that plethora of emotions?

Just put an angry face sticker on the front,it will probably be accurate in most cases…

Anders:

Does this qualify as AI slop?

Drive By Commenter:

It’s the great-great-great-great grandfather of Marvin the Depressed Android!

Fuzzyweis:

I can just see the first accident this thing gets in to it starts screaming, WHY?! Why was I programmed to feel pain?

Ottomottopean:

I’m looking forward to Torch’s article explaining how they got the face all wrong and then shows us how they should have properly anthropomorphized the van.

Our great staff car, the infamous Ssangyong Rodius can now annoy not just our Adrian Clarke, but our UK readers, too! JT4Ever:

Laugh maniacally at the complete uselessness of the rear soiler!

This typo is spot on

Finally, we stop at my mid-1970s oil embargo camper story, where Canopysaurus said:

I had just started working at a service station before the oil embargo hit. I recall having to get to the station by 5 AM and even then the lines were forming.

We had to block the driveways because otherwise there’s be people parked all which way at the six pumps waiting for us to open.

My first task was to stick the tanks (literally sticking a long calibrated pole into the in ground tanks to determine how much fuel was in each of three tanks. The tank caps had to be padlocked for the first time ever since people had tried to siphon fuel from them late at night. I’d convert the tank measurements into approximate gallons of fuel and that into an estimate of how many cars we could service. Next we’d reset the pump prices if necessary, then create one way flow lanes for cars entering and exiting. People coming for repairs were routed. to the apartment parking lots behind the station. Then we’d switch on the pumps and lights and get busy.

Early on in the shortage, we just pumped until we were close to empty (needed a small reserve for the station vehicles and our cars), then close down, but pretty soon I had to walk down that line of cars and put a last car sign on the estimated final car we could fill. You should have heard the screams and abuse hurled my way and looks on the faces when people saw me coming and prayed I’d bypass them. Later we had to ration gas, first $10 per car then just $5. This was not popular. And of course we were accused of saving fuel for friends and pumping after hours (which, I confess, did happen now and then, but not often. Mostly just for emergencies.)

One of my best buddies back then was a super nice guy whose family owned a small RV business. There were some very slim years for the family, but they persevered through tough times through excellent service and comprehensive knowledge about their products and the industry. He went on to found Campers Inn RV with 25 dealerships up and down the East Coast, serve on the RVDA board in several leadership positions and win all of the industries’ highest awards in addition to being a huge investor and donor in multiple charitable institutions.

I haven’t seen him in nearly 50 years since I used to fill up his company trucks and our high school graduation. Your story of the tiny fuel crisis fighting trailer raised many memories of those days. Thanks.

Have a great day, everyone!