Introducing Ford AI Assistant in the Ford App 📱

[MavGeek]

Yea but bandwidth, servers, etc to run a simple API that lets people lock/unlock/start their vehicle from farther than key fob range can be supported by the vehicle sales pretty easily

adding AI probably increases the compute they need 100x, not even trying to exaggerate

so now the functionality I wanted and considered during my purchase is at risk of being paywalled in order to support some VP's dumb request to put AI into the app

and for what, to save people a few minutes of putting something into google or learning how to do something themselves?

Why dwell on something that doesn’t exist?

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[MaverickDragon]

Are you sure no one will use it?
It sure seems like a few who have posted above are looking forward to it.
Paywalls, I hate them as much as the next person. That said, nobody promised me that all information on the internet was going to be free or correct.
Whether it's advertisers or us directly. Someone has to pay for bandwidth, electricity, servers.. etc.
If you think about it the newspaper was a type of paywall.

Obviously some will / some won't.
For at least a new owner, having an interface that is dedicated to the subject matter at hand might increase the veracity beyond the typical robo answers that are often in conflict with reality.

I doubt the app will be used much once an owner becomes familiar with the vehicle, but that supposition may not be true if the bot has access to information beyond the owner's manual.
A lot depends on what repository it has access to..

I'll probably check it out, assuming it rolls out to my phone, but at this point I don't expect it to be any "smarter" than the stupid robot who seldom has answers on the Ford site...

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

Obviously some will / some won't.
For at least a new owner, having an interface that is dedicated to the subject matter at hand might increase the veracity beyond the typical robo answers that are often in conflict with reality.

I doubt the app will be used much once an owner becomes familiar with the vehicle, but that supposition may not be true if the bot has access to information beyond the owner's manual.
A lot depends on what repository it has access to..

I'll probably check it out, assuming it rolls out to my phone, but at this point I don't expect it to be any "smarter" than the stupid robot who seldom has answers on the Ford site...

I wasn't the one that proclaimed the absolute. Twice as a matter of fact.

 

[MaverickDragon]

I wasn't the one that proclaimed the absolute. Twice as a matter of fact.

I didn't say you did, but you asked the question as part of your post.

I agree, stating an absolute either way is unlikely to be true in this case, or most others.

Myself, I doubt it will be much different from what is in the manual, but at least it will give @Carlitos_92 a different option to RTFM.. i.e. UTFR - Use The Frikin' Robot

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

I didn't say you did, but you asked the question as part of your post.

I agree, stating an absolute either way is unlikely to be true in this case, or most others.

Myself, I doubt it will be much different from what is in the manual, but at least it will give @Carlitos_92 a different option to RTFM.. i.e. UTFR - Use The Frikin' Robot

If the below is the post you're referring to I believe you must have missed the above quote. I even put the words from the quote and the post in bold so it's not to be confused.

I might include this post also.

 

[Prickly Pear]

Not that Ford is ramming anything down our throats (yet), but the pattern seems to be (via Google, Microsoft, etc) offering up this amazing technology free, then sort of demeaning the user for not choosing to use said amazing technology, then making it the default so you have no choice but to use it. Even had my insurance company AI tell me something to the effect of "I know you want a human, but I can provide anything they can".
I'm pretty much a hard pass on anything AI where I have a choice.

 

[MaverickDragon]

If the below is the post you're referring to I believe you must have missed the above quote. I even put the words from the quote and the post in bold so it's not to be confused.

Hmm..
You apparently didn't notice that I was agreeing with you...

 

[HeyBales]

You know... It's a good chance it's also going to have access to all the vehicle data and info so people on the other end of things can get AI generated reports and what not faster .. all seems to be heading the way we are told with newer systems to be implemented for 'driver safety'. Or I could be wrong and l will just keep my foil hat on

Oh do you imagine Ford doesn't already have all that vehicle data?
At minimum - every time you shut your truck off.

Now the interesting test would be to get the Ford app working with the truck.
Then disable the remote access on both sides (Ford will still get truck info though - you just can't access it).
And then see if the Ford app just complains no current connection to truck, but still provides the AI searching of the manual and Ford resources.

Just searching the manual easier for some people can make a difference - otherwise they ain't lookin at it.

 

[commadorebob]

So Ford started working on AI for the app early this year. Ford introduced the Maverick in 2022 and according to Google AI there have been 68 recalls so far. So I surmise that the AI for the app will be useful in 2030.

Software Engineers =/= Mechanical Engineers

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

Oh do you imagine Ford doesn't already have all that vehicle data?
At minimum - every time you shut your truck off.

Now the interesting test would be to get the Ford app working with the truck.
Then disable the remote access on both sides (Ford will still get truck info though - you just can't access it).
And then see if the Ford app just complains no current connection to truck, but still provides the AI searching of the manual and Ford resources.

Just searching the manual easier for some people can make a difference - otherwise they ain't lookin at it.

I wonder how much online information for it is collecting from my truck?
Since I changed my internet service w/new modem & router, plus, I pulled the telematics fuse 11.

 

[edmc]

Why dwell on something that doesn’t exist?

I mean it does exist. They've already built out this AI functionality.
People wonder why prices continue to skyrocket, it's dumb stuff like this that no one asked for.

The Sync Assistant crap is bad enough, where they keep trying to remake Car Play / Android Auto for no reason. Literally EVERYONE is happy with Car Play / Android Auto and there is zero reason to reinvent that wheel aside from GREED.

 

[MavGeek]

I mean it does exist. They've already built out this AI functionality.
People wonder why prices continue to skyrocket, it's dumb stuff like this that no one asked for.

The Sync Assistant crap is bad enough, where they keep trying to remake Car Play / Android Auto for no reason. Literally EVERYONE is happy with Car Play / Android Auto and there is zero reason to reinvent that wheel aside from GREED.

Sorry, I was speaking of it being paywalled.

 

[edmc]

I just want to add, even let's say this is just to help folks look things up in the owner's manual.

This is such a god-awful waste of resources.

Every time someone asks for example, "how do I unlock the fuel door" - the amount of compute, bandwidth, electricity, water, and other resources being used by data centers to take that input, run it through a vector database to stitch together an answer, and then send it back to the user - is just staggering.

Or people could not be astronomically lazy, glance at the table of contents, flip to the relevant page, and read the information that has already been provided and requires zero or next to nothing (maybe a PDF download) ongoing resource usage.

Even a simple Google search that would lead to threads in this forum eats an infinitesimal amount of resources compared to AI.

 

[samspritzer]

Will AI give Mavster Mechanic credit for devising the method to deal with batteries dying?

 

[HeyBales]

Since I pulled the telematics fuse # 11.
I wonder how much information and data Ford can collect if any from my truck?

How can you wonder?
You don't wonder....
Picture proof of you wondering!

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