control where your HVAC vents are blowing by swiping at a touch screen with a little picture of a dashboard on it<\/a>, inches from the actual dashboard vents. You know, like how an idiot would choose to control where air blows.<\/p>\nBut let\u2019s get back to this AI agent business that Bensaid is so hot on. This is part of why Rivian is so against integrating Apple CarPlay or Android Auto into their cars, even though so many people seem to want that, with many buyers considering it a requirement for any new car they may buy. From Rivian\u2019s point of view, phone mirroring systems like CarPlay or Android Auto are bad because, according to Bensaid,<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge with screen mirroring solutions is that they take over every single pixel in the car, and that\u2019s not the way we see ourselves interacting with our users.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2026 which is just a PR-massaged way of saying they don\u2019t want to give up their screen real estate to a company they don\u2019t control. Instead, Rivian \u2013like a number of other automakers \u2013 would much rather you only use their own in-house UX for your interactions with the car, and in Rivian\u2019s case, it looks like this will soon become far more voice-focused. As Bensaid says in the podcast,<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are on the cusp of something really big. When you think about it, you\u2019re in a car, you\u2019re driving, you\u2019re focused on the road. So, in theory, the primary interface with which you should be interacting with the car is actually voice. The only reason that drivers and consumers do not interact with the car through voice is that, to put it really bluntly, the technology has been broken. That\u2019s really the beauty of what we have now with the technology disruption coming with foundational models.\u201d<\/p>\n
See, I\u2019d have to disagree here. Even if you\u2019re focused on the road, that doesn\u2019t mean voice should be the \u201cprimary interface\u201d with which you should be interacting with your car. Driving is a physical task; the primary interface is, and has always been, and should always be physical. Steering, braking, using muscle memory to move your hand to controls automatically \u2013 a good interface between a human and car means the car becomes almost a prosthetic. You don\u2019t need that extra whole layer of cognition to put your desired actions into words at all.<\/p>\n
![\"Rivian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/rivian_conversation.jpg\")
Image source: Rivian<\/p>\n
Bensaid doesn\u2019t seem to get this concept at all, and I think makes my argument for me when he describes a voice-controlled trunk-opening process:<\/p>\n
The foundational models are providing us this wonderful opportunity to truly have a conversational experience where drivers can interact with the car in human language. I don\u2019t need to tell the car, \u201cOpen the frunk.\u201d I can say, \u201cOpen the front trunk.\u201d Actually, I can say, \u201cI have a bag in front of the car,\u201d and it will actually open the frunk. I think that completely changes the way you interact with the car.<\/p>\n
I agree, it does completely change the way you interact with the car. It makes it worse.<\/p>\n
Just think about this for a second. Why would you want a \u201cconversational experience\u201d when it comes to getting your stuff out of the trunk, front or rear? Just think about how you normally get your bag out of a trunk now, in your average modern-ish car. You park, you get out of the car, you walk to the trunk at whatever end of the car your bag is in, and you open the trunk. That\u2019s it. You don\u2019t have to tell the car shit.<\/p>\n
The car detects your key in your pocket, you push a little button or latch to open the lid, and you\u2019re done. Telling the car \u201cI have a bag in the front of the car\u201d is just adding a useless step. Will the bag levitate out on its own? No. I mean, for most of us lacking telekinesis skills, no. So you still have to go and physically touch the trunk. What the hell is the point of telling the car you have a bag in the trunk? How much extra computing hardware is needed to process and execute that command? For what? Letting the car know you have a bag? So the AI can send that information to advertisers and you\u2019ll see AI-enhanced duffel bag ads for the next three days? Fuck that.<\/p>\n
Has Bensaid never been in a car with a friend, in mid-conversation, continuing as you leave the car and get your shit out of the trunk? Of course he has. We all have. Have you ever wanted to pause mid-conversation and tell your car where your bags are? No. Fuck no.<\/p>\n
Part of what seems to be going on here is the mistaken notion that somehow your car needs to be doing the same things you already have a phone for. Listen to this bullshit from Bensaid:<\/p>\n
\u201cOn top of that, we now have the opportunity with all the agentic framework to truly give people their time back in the car. I hope you tried our Google Calendar agentic integration. You can imagine how the experience will be in the future where you\u2019re driving and can perform operations on your calendar. You should be able to perform operations on your email. In the future with the agent-to-agent integration, you can actually interact with many more apps from your own digital ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calendar integration? \u201cPerform operations on your email?\u201d Why the fuck would you want your\u00a0car to be part of that? That\u2019s already what your damn phone is for? And these \u201cagent-to-agent\u201d integrations, that just means that some AI bullshit built into your car is talking to the AI bullshit built into your phone so in the end, what is the AI agent in your car doing other than passing along messages to the phone that\u2019s right fucking there with you and if they just let you have the damn Android Auto or CarPlay you could talk right to it? Or just talk to it as it sits on the seat next to you? What\u2019s the point of all this?<\/p>\n
You car doesn\u2019t need to uselessly duplicate all the features of your phone. It\u2019s the wrong tool for that job. Your phone is a good personal assistant tool because it\u2019s the size and shape of a well-worn bar of soap and you can slide it in your pocket, not a 4,000 pound hunk of metal and plastic with wheels. Nobody wants their phone to sprout spindly wheels to you can drive it to work, just as we don\u2019t need to use our cars to answer fucking emails.<\/p>\n
Here he is again talking about the car replicating phone jobs:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can imagine that in the future, instead of having that mono access to every single app on your car \u2014 or honestly, even on your smartphone \u2014 you can start aggregating and connecting many of those apps through the agentic framework and have them present a unified user experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah,\u00a0you\u00a0can imagine that in the future, Wassym, leave me out of it. Who decided we needed a \u201cunified user experience\u201d via phone and car? Let phone do the phone shit, and let your car do the car shit. Phone mirroring is great: all the phone things: reminders, music playlists, calendar stuff, navigation, whatever are available through your car, but using the same interface you\u2019ve been using all day, all the data and settings and preferences still there like you like them, just accessible on your dashboard. It\u2019s fine. Let the phone have that. The car doesn\u2019t need it.<\/p>\n
Bensaid describes another situation that he thinks reinforces Rivian\u2019s decision to duplicate the jobs of your phone, but really does the opposite:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is how we\u2019re able to connect the navigation to Google Calendar, for example. I can go to the assistant now and say, \u201cI want to plan a trip from San Francisco to San Diego, and I want to have two charging stops. I want them to be close to an Italian restaurant. I love Italian food.\u201d The assistant would go and play that, and then I\u2019ll say, \u201cOkay, print the summary, add it to my calendar, and then send it as a text to my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Again, why is the car\u2019s AI doing this? If this was all just handled on your phone, it could be done before you\u2019re even in the car. The car doesn\u2019t need to be in this loop at all.<\/p>\n
This, I think, is the root of the problem. Car software people want the data and eyeball-access that phones have, and unless you clumsily try to force it to happen with this redundant and inane car-AI-as-middleman approach, it won\u2019t happen. And that\u2019s fine. Really, all of the AI in the car \u2013 if there must be any \u2013 should be behind the scenes. Like, why would you want a command to change drive modes? The car can sense your inputs, and if you\u2019re stomping the throttle and brake hard, switch to a sportier mode. If you\u2019re being gentle, go to eco. Just adapt based on the driver\u2019s inputs, seamlessly. That level of machine learning seems fine.<\/p>\n
But who the fuck wants an LLM to talk to when you\u2019re driving? I don\u2019t need some untrustworthy AI making decisions for me about what music I want to listen to or opening the damn trunk or adjusting the HVAC. No one wants this, no one needs this. Just stop.<\/p>\n
Honestly, based on the rate of change of technology compared to the lifespan of cars, why would you want to be locked into some complex car UX or LLM, anyway? Sure, you can update software, but the hardware isn\u2019t going to get better over time. The average age of a car in America is over 12 years old. Who is using a 12-year old smartphone? All this crap should be modular and easily swappable.<\/p>\n
Bensaid noted that for a lot of these interactions, the computing hardware will be local to the car, in addition to using cloud-based resources. Honestly, either way has drawbacks: local hardware will eventually be unable to run more modern software, and cloud-based solutions are dependent on connectivity and the health\/desires of the company. They could shut features down at will, or discontinue them, or make them into subscription services. Why are we okay with any of that?<\/p>\n
I guess I should note that there seem to be plenty of people in China that like talking to their cars and AI in general<\/a>. I guess this is just one of those cases where 500 million plus people are wrong and I\u2019m right. It happens, it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\nWe\u2019re going down a bad path. I\u2019m sure Mr.Bensaid is a wonderful man, a smart man and probably a very tender, generous lover, but I think he is woefully misguided when it comes to how people \u2013 real, actual people, not AI-deluded dillholes \u2013 want to actually interact with their cars.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to go out on a limb here, but I still think that people want to drive their cars, not have tedious conversations with them. That\u2019s what friends are for, after all.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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