The German automaker announced Monday at CES 2024 in Las Vegas plans to add an AI-powered chatbot into all Volkswagen models equipped with its IDA voice assistant.
The AI-based chatbot, which is based on software company Cerence’s Chat Pro product, will roll out in the second quarter, starting with Europe.
For now, Volkswagen models in the United States won’t have the feature.
The voice assistant is activated with the “Hello IDA” wake word or by pressing the button on the steering wheel.
The response will come through the IDA voice assistant so drivers may not even know when ChatGPT is and is not in use.
CES has always been the place for weird, out-there gadgets to make their debuts, and this year’s show is no exception.
Skyted, a Toulouse, France-based startup founded by former Airbus VP Stéphane Hersen and acoustical engineer Frank Simon, is bringing what look like a pair of human muzzles to CES 2024.
The app also calculates the wearer’s “voice level” and shows insights into their “perceptibility” and “intelligibility,” sort of like a Fitbit for speech.
The masks muffle 80% of a wearer’s voice, Skyted claims, while enhancing the volume in voice and video calls by isolating outside noise.
On its website, Skyted advertises… unusual in-app features like a “voice awareness” mode that lets parents quiet their noisy mask-donning kids while they’re playing video games.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have written to the United States’ Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, expressing concerns over the disproportionate impact tech layoffs could have on Black workers, according to a letter seen by TechCrunch.
More than 240,000 jobs have been eliminated this year due to layoffs in the tech industry.
The worry here is that the “last in, first out” approach to tech layoffs commonly employed at companies may impact new, less senior and “non-essential” employees, who are most likely to be minorities.
“We’ve seen that Black, Brown, and women tech workers have borne the brunt of layoffs while companies have enjoyed billion-dollar profits,” Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, co-chair of the CBC, told TechCrunch.
The Department of Labor and Su did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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