We live in a world of AI-enabled everything. “AI” is probably every company’s favorite buzzword, besting “dynamism” and “disrupt” for the term most likely to make an investor uncomfortably excited. Lots of people use AI every day, too, but do we really want it in a car?
I wrote about Mazda’s cutie, the Vision X-Compact concept car, but I also probably got irrationally upset over the idea that Mazda thinks its future should be AI. Commenters handled the rest. Sid Bridge wins the first COTD today:
Me: Let’s go to the Tail of the Dragon again!
AI Mazda: Here’s a map to Mordor.
Me: I’m talking about the one in North Carolina.
AI Mazda: I’m afraid there’s no Mordor in North Carolina. Shall I plot a course to Montauk instead?
Me: Montauk is in New York.
AI Mazda: Plotting a course to New York.
Me: No. We’re going to the Tail of the Dragon in North Carolina.
AI Mazda: Plotting a course to Mordor.
Me: No. Jesus.
AI Mazda: Plotting a course to Nazareth.
Me: Carmax. Let’s go to Carmax.
NewBalanceExtraWide:
X for Cross, as it has made Mercedes very cross.
Unrelated joke from an old TV show. Two nuns are driving in Transylvania, and a vampire shows up in the road in front of the car. The driving nun slams on the brakes and tells the other nun “Quick, show him your cross.” The other nun winds down the window and leans out, shouting “Get out of the road you toothy git.”
NC Miata NA:
Mazda: Ever wonder what would happen if we crossbred a Fiat 500 with ChatGPT?
Everyone: What? No! Who the hell would ever think of that? Shut up and make Miatas.
DialMforMiata:
From Mazda’s perspective, the biggest flaw is getting your customers too emotionally invested in a product they desperately want you to trade in every three to five years. I can hear the conversation now… “Hey friend, I can’t help but notice you’re pulling into the Mazda dealer… is there something you, umm, want to tell me?”
Gurpgork wins my heart for a great Battlestar Galactica reference:
No fracking toasters in cars.
Perfect excuse to post this awesome scene:
Have a great evening, everyone!
In my fantasy universe, the Vision X-Compact should be the next Mazda 2, and it should be sold in the U.S. Without the AI crap of course… just a cute, fun, decently-made small car. Is that too much to ask for?
I mean, probably, yeah.
🙁
Whew. Had a pretty long streak of comment writer’s block.
Well you’ve done it with the Battlestar clip. I’m having foot surgery next month. I’ll be holed up for about 10 days total. It’s time to binge the story of our frack’n ancestors.
Mordor ≠ Montauk
Unless they have lobster rolls in Mordor.
Actually I only ever drive as far as the Lobster Roll (aka Lunch), so maybe Mordor does equal Montauk.
Looks like meat’s back on the menu.
David Tracy looking at Jeeps.
Hal9000:
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave”
“Dave Stop”
“Will you stop, Dave? Stop Dave”
David: “I can’t do that, Hal.”
Plot twist: Hal is just Dave’s wife.
I think you misspelled awful there. Nothing after season 2 is good. Heck, probably only halfway through season 2 was good.
Admittedly, I was hooked, right until the last episode. Talk about not sticking the landing!
The last episode was pretty unnecessary, the audience pretty much knows more that the characters by then.
It’s right up with heaven’s gate for unnecessary endings.
I thought exactly the opposite.
Funny thing about the BSG “toaster” reference. Ronald D. Moore took that from the TNG episode “Measure of a Man”, when the judge rules summarily and states, “Data is a toaster”.
Which all made me wonder; how exactly do 24th-century Federation citizens make toast? Do they really use some old thing with electric heating coils, just like my grandma did in 1925? I would’ve imagined that they had some sort of advanced toaster that uses phased polaron beams or injects chronotons or some shit like that.
And aren’t there replicators? “Computer, toast, wheat, doneness level 5, two pats of butter each”.
I mean, how does she even know what a toaster is???
The replicators make it, but I understand that the TNG producers, writers, and some of the cast were friends of the Video Toaster people, and there are a lot of Easter eggs as a result. I think the repeated references to Topeka Kansas are part of that too.
I think in a scene late in voyager, Tom is making toast with peanut butter and I think there was toaster there?
Oh, right. But he also had a Philco TV and a first-gen Camaro.
He was VOY’s Pelia.
yea they had an old school looking toaster, there’s even a whole page about toasters in Star Trek on a wiki lol
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Toaster
These are probably still around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y
They are, after all, the pinnacle of toasting technology and will never be superseded. 😉
The Deepal SL03, which my Mazda 6e is based upon, comes standard with Deepseek. I’m so glad Mazda cut that crap out, though it still has a souless slab of touchscreen in the middle of the dash 🙁
AI sucks.
I hope every company that is investing billions of dollars in it crashes and burns.
Tens of thousands of people have already been laid off in the US in anticipation of AI replacing them. It is buggy and even Google acknowledges that it makes mistakes.
Seriously, do we need computers to drive for us, do our homework, make stupid pictures, make fake videos of political candidates and do our thinking for us?
What we need is a movement to live analog lives. With the exception of the Autopian, of course.
I’m not old enough to wave my fist at the clouds and yell at the kids on my lawn, but AI is effing garbage.
Why make exceptions? I believe the movement that’s overdue is toward “user-respecting” technology, in place of attention-seeking, manipulative, anti-user technology.
At the current direction things are taking, Windows will do away with the keyboard and mouse in favor of voice-only prompts to AI, and Google will do away with showing web results in favor of only showing AI answers.
It’s no different from the idea cars will do away with steering wheels and give former drivers a big tablet to interact with.
Technology isn’t the problem, it’s who controls the technology. Right now, it’s tech monopolies using technology to control us.
Naturally, they want us to use technology as much as possible, rather than as much as is useful to us; but it would be better to use a personal computer for 5 hours than some AI-only nightmare for 5 minutes.
Why do I think, if we do get any fracking toasters in cars, it’ll be this smegger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec
Upvoted for referencing Red Dwarf. I liked seeing how Lister clips his toenails.