“Hello Iris, give me information about Saint-Cloud Park.” A voice with the robotic sound of the GPS then launches into a story of the famous Parisian suburban park, in the form of a fluid conversation, in the cabin of this DS3.
Since mid-October, the premium manufacturer DS has offered its customers the opportunity to test a version of its Iris voice assistant powered by ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence (that is, an AI capable of creating images or texts).
“It’s like a conversation”
One of the first beta testers is none other than the chief software officer at DS owner Stellantis. “It helps me look for, for example, a restaurant that has these characteristics,” explains Yves Bonnefont in En Route Pour Demain. “It’s a dialogue around my request, which is refined in the conversation and then, once I find the right restaurant, we transfer directly to the GPS.” Another feature: ChatGPT allows Iris to make up a story from scratch to entertain passengers.
Although these functions seem a little “gimmicky” at first glance, according to Yves Bonnefont they offer real comfort.
“The good thing is to keep the context in the conversation with the car,” the latter continues. “It’s like a conversation. In the second question, the machine knows the context of the first.”
And to avoid, for example, searching for the right restaurant on your smartphone and then entering it into the GPS, a dangerous attitude while driving.
“He is a pilot.”
One of the biases of the experiment also has to do with the reliability of artificial intelligence. How can we be sure that ChatGPT won’t tell outrageous things with aplomb, like generative AI can?
“A certain number of filters are introduced into the system, that’s why we want to work only with 20,000 volunteer clients who want to try this new technology and we will learn together,” explains Yves Bonnefont. But I can’t guarantee that there will be no 100%. “That’s why he’s a pilot.”
A more or less deep integration may depend on this first phase. DS will conduct in-depth interviews with its customers, but also generic data analysis at the end of the six months of testing.
“Therefore, we have planned a whole system to interrogate them and understand their satisfaction and expectations,” Yves Bonnefont tells us. “We will interview the people who participated and then also perform completely anonymous statistical analysis of the types of questions that will be asked.” ChatGPT will ask our clients. “We will have statistics by main areas: do customers mainly use it to tell stories to children, to ask for information about the weather and places around them?”
For the use of data linked to more specific recommendations, according to the client’s profile, it will be done “with the client’s consent,” explains the software director of Stellantis, who sees it as a technology company strategy, which is what it intends. become the automobile group.
At the center of tomorrow’s construction business?
Isn’t it especially likely that DS will lead to a tool without benefiting from it? Everything will depend on the use made of this artificial intelligence, according to Yves Bonnefont. “The whole area of speech recognition of dialogue, of generative AI that allows this contextualized dialogue, is not specific to the automobile. We will find them more and more in everyday life,” he emphasizes.
“Our core business is not the automotive sector and, therefore, in these areas, we are interested in working with people who have a vision that extends widely outside the automotive sector and who are able to have models that understand the needs the client’s. Entire life.”
“There are also AI applications that are much more important to us, such as autonomous driving, with perception around the vehicle,” explains Yves Bonnefont. “There we are the ‘core business’ for the manufacturer and there we have internalized it in Stellantis.” Another characteristic feature of a future technology company?
Mercedes tests ChatGPT in the United States
The star manufacturer has also chosen to include ChatGPT in its vehicles, but on the other side of the Atlantic. Like DS, AI will be combined with in-vehicle voice recognition.
But the German brand adds a brick, because it wants to use it in its factories. The goal is to better process the data reported from the production system, while facilitating the communication interface for factory workers. This testing phase was launched at the beginning of summer. Mercedes hasn’t returned yet.
Source: BFM TV
