"might feed"? I'm pretty certain most of what you describe is already happening.
I have read and listened to Yanis on techno-feudalism for a while and his arguments are persuasive. I think the next 4 years in the US will show how far the tech overlords can go with dismantling protective legislation.
Mostly this just hurts my brain to think about it. Democracy is at a crossroads.
I agree Martin, we've had this type of data hoovering around for a long time. With fleet renewal being a fairly slow process and with EV adoption picking up, I do think the next couple of years might take us through a tipping point though.
And yet we carry around personal connected devices that can capture basically the same set of information. Is it better or worse that a car brand is collecting it than a phone brand? In any case, people should be informed and be able to turn it all off.
It's an interesting point Andrew. Hopefully I'm not naive to think that we have the ability to turn off quite a bit of the location tracking on our phones. That's the biggest concern I have with connected cars. As Katharine describes, the long, opaque and fragmented privacy policies don't fill me with confidence.
"might feed"? I'm pretty certain most of what you describe is already happening.
I have read and listened to Yanis on techno-feudalism for a while and his arguments are persuasive. I think the next 4 years in the US will show how far the tech overlords can go with dismantling protective legislation.
Mostly this just hurts my brain to think about it. Democracy is at a crossroads.
I agree Martin, we've had this type of data hoovering around for a long time. With fleet renewal being a fairly slow process and with EV adoption picking up, I do think the next couple of years might take us through a tipping point though.
Also interesting is that Tesla sales are dropping while Chinese EV sales are growing - what does that do for our tech overlords?
More tariffs on the way? B-)
And yet we carry around personal connected devices that can capture basically the same set of information. Is it better or worse that a car brand is collecting it than a phone brand? In any case, people should be informed and be able to turn it all off.
It's an interesting point Andrew. Hopefully I'm not naive to think that we have the ability to turn off quite a bit of the location tracking on our phones. That's the biggest concern I have with connected cars. As Katharine describes, the long, opaque and fragmented privacy policies don't fill me with confidence.
There's an interesting article at https://timsh.org/tracking-myself-down-through-in-app-ads/ that shows how location tracking happens even when privacy features are enabled in smartphones.
Very related article in my feeds this week. Jeep showing ads every time the car stops.
https://techweez.com/2025/02/11/jeep-owners-express-outrage-over-full-screen-ads-at-every-stop/
Good grief! If I saw an ad in my own car I'd be creating a new form of road rage. Thanks for the share Sean.
While there are shades of a dystopian future there, it seems that this was a glitch. It's a real message pop up (I suspect similar to ones suggesting you find a petrol station, or reminding you of an upcoming service) but wasn't meant to keep appearing. https://www.theautopian.com/jeep-says-the-repeated-full-screen-pop-up-ads-are-a-glitch-and-not-just-a-nightmare/