Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily news and commentary show, guest-hosted today by Acceleration Economy practitioner analyst Kenny Mullican. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
This episode is sponsored by Acceleration Economy’s “Cloud Wars Top 10 Course,” which explains how Bob Evans builds and updates the Cloud Wars Top 10 ranking, as well as how C-suite executives use the list to inform strategic cloud purchase decisions. The course is available today.
In this episode, Kenny discusses how Mercedes-Benz is bringing Microsoft’s ChatGPT into its vehicles.
Highlights
00:39 — Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft have announced plans to incorporate ChatGPT functionality into Mercedes vehicles through the company’s Hey, Mercedes voice assistant. “Is this just an example of more companies jumping on the ChatGPT bandwagon?” Kenny doesn’t think so.
01:07 — Most of the coverage of ChatGPT (and other artificial intelligence tools) has focused on its generative AI capabilities, but the aspect of ChatGPT that most impresses Kenny is its extensive natural language understanding provided by large language models (LLMs).
01:43 — Kenny’s car has voice commands for doing a few simple things, but it’s limited. Interfaces like Siri or Alexa for car controls are more impressive. They’ve made huge strides in their ability to understand all different accents and pronunciations. But if Kenny tries to go beyond really basic requests, they just reply, “I don’t know that.”
02:45 — ChatGPT, on the other hand, seems to understand some very complex requests and respond appropriately. It’s also able to maintain context: You can follow up with additional requests that are related to the ongoing conversation.
03:18 — Kenny’s not sure what capabilities Mercedes-Benz is giving access to through ChatGPT. It’ll likely be related to driving destinations or entertainment system controls. He knows it is exploring ways to integrate it with ChatGPT’s third-party services, through which you can accomplish tasks like booking a restaurant table or getting movie tickets, all while keeping your hands on the wheel.
03:46 — It is applying the latest AI to our everyday lives to make things work better and easier. If the latest AI can be applied to cars, then it can be applied to business or manufacturing. Kenny can’t wait to see what comes next.
