I’m Sorry, Dave . . .

You have probably watched the Stanley Kubrick sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey – which came out back in 1968, the year Apollo 10 orbited the Moon, in advance of the landing that took place the following year.

The movie has many predictive themes, including an artificial intelligence named HAL that ends up trying to kill the two astronauts sent to check out an anomaly on one of Jupiter’s moons. The AI has a dead-calm, Ted Bundy-like voice that refuses to open the pod bay door – to let the surviving astronaut back into the spaceship.

I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid can’t do that. 

Fast forward 56 years. HAL is real. And he’s behind the dashboard of your next new car.

I am currently test-driving a new Kia Sorento so equipped. It is one of many with iterations of HAL but this one takes it up a notch. After the car was dropped off the other day, I decided to drive it around to get some initial impressions, which is what I always do when I get a new car to test drive. But before I begin my drive, I familiarize myself with the car and its controls – including the radio (now the audio system) controls.

After looking around for a little while, I realized there aren’t any.

Not in a physical interface sense.

No buttons or knobs.

Just a big slab of LCD touchscreen, but it did not respond to my touch. Then I saw a small button. On the left side of the steering wheel. With an icon of a person talking. So I pressed it. This cued up the Kia’s HAL. On the right side of the LCD display, a shape-shifting amoeba thing began to undulate, signaling it was ready to listen.

“Channel 125,” I said. And it responded. Voila – Channel 125 began to play.

But are we being played?

Talking to the car – to its AI – is the latest “surprise and delight” thing they’re putting into new cars to  . . . surprise and delight prospective customers. It’s an industry term that means, basically, wow the customer with some new thing that makes them want to buy because what they have hasn’t got it.

In the past, this new thing was usually some mechanical thing – such as a bigger/stronger/smoother engine. Or a new standard amenity – such as a great stereo or standard power windows – that was previously either an expensive option or not even available.

But now all new cars have these amenities – so, ho-hum. And the improvements in drivetrain “technology” are at best incremental and (lately) not improvements at all, such as smaller and less powerful engines that are also more complicated and expensive engines. So how to get buyers excited about buying something new that doesn’t really have much to offer that they don’t already have?

How about not having to turn a knob to change the channel/program you’re listening to?

Many new vehicles have this voice command “tech.” Some have what is styled “gesture control,” which means you don’t actually have to touch a control to exert control over whatever it is, such as the volume control.

Of course, you’re not actually controlling anything. The AI tech is – and this raises some questions worth asking. Such as what will happen when the AI decides not to do what you’ve asked it to – like the HAL 9000 unit in the Discovery?

I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Always polite. But firmly in control. Like a parent that says no to a child. Only that thing embedded in the car isn’t your parent and you are not its child. More finely, that thing embedded in the car doesn’t have the love for its “child” that a parent has for his or her child. Over whom the parent is exercises benevolent and temporary control until the child becomes an adult.

The control being exercised by that thing embedded in the car considers you an idiot child that requires endless parenting. The distinction is important.

And what is the upside?

Convenience.

Yes, that’s the sell. That and the flashiness of  “tech” – as in the way a seagull at the beach is wowed by the glint of a piece of tinfoil blown across the sand. The seagull pecks at it – and so does the prospective car buyer.

Look at this! Wow! I don’t have to do anything! The car does it for me!

Of course, it will be inconvenient when HAL decides not to open the pod bay doors. When it decides not to allow you to drive faster than whatever the posted speed limit is. Or pulls itself over – and parks – because it decides you’re too “tired” to continue driving.

It’s time for a rest, Dave. 

All for what? So that you no longer need to reach over to turn a knob to the left or the right in order to change the station/program you’re listening to.

Maybe we deserve to not be allowed back into the pod bay.

. . .

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