You can ask the vehicle's onboard assistant to do all types of things, such as keeping you warm to asking it to keep your children entertained.
ADVERTISEMENTVolkswagen is integrating ChatGPT into some of its vehicles, as the company unveiled its partnership with the company Cerence Chat Pro, which enables automakers to integrate OpenAI's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
The German carmaker announced on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s largest technology fair, in Las Vegas that its ID.7 electric sedan and the Golf GTI would implement ChatGPT.
Both companies showed how the technology used the Language Learning Model (LLM) by telling the voice assistant the passenger was cold. In response, the machine replied "OK, heating up the passenger seat," and subsequently did so.
Volkswagen says the new assistant will also be able to control navigation and infotainment systems.
Another impressive use is when asked where to find buttered chicken, the AI replied with a list of nearby restaurants. It also showed recipes for buttered chicken when asked.
"It’s the best car we’ve ever built," Kai Grunitz, a member of Volkswagen’s board of management for technical development told a crowd of journalists.
Data protection
As for privacy concerns, the system does not have access to vehicle data, and questions and answers put to the assistant are deleted.
The integration introduces a so-called protection layer where the automaker can decide which query is forwarded to a third-party LLM and which query should be covered by its existing system.
This enables the decision on what should be handled by third-party content and what should remain in the context of the automaker, which can be adjusted by the companies.
"Most systems today have their limitations, because they are all trained and only capable of capture queries, depending on the training data which is leading to a high error rate," Nils Schanz, chief product officer of Cerence, told Euronews Next.
"With LLMs now, we have way more capabilities, where there are no more limitations and the LLM can cover all types of queries and questions but it's important it is automotive specific".
The technology will become a standard feature in many Volkswagen production vehicles starting from Q2 2024 but it is still being considered in the United States.
Schanz said Cerence, which provides automotive assistants, is also starting to look into implementing ChatGPT into motorbikes.
Volkswagen is not the only company to use ChatGPT in its vehicles; Mercedes-Benz started experimenting with the tech in June.
