Imagine your car playing you an ad based on your destination, vehicle information—and listening to your conversations.

Ford has patented a system that, per the filing, would use several different sources of information to customize ad content to play in your car. One such information stream that this hypothetical system would use to determine what sort of ads to serve could be could be the voice commands you’ve given to the car. It could also identify your voice and recognize you and your ad preferences, and those of your passengers. Finally, it could listen to your conversations and determine if it’s better to serve you a visual ad while you’re talking, or an audio ad when there’s a lull in the conversation.

If the system described in the patent knew that you were headed to the mall on the freeway based on destination information from the nav system and vehicle speed, it could consider how many ads to serve in the time you’ll be in the car, and whether to serve them on a screen or based through the audio system. If you respond more positively to audio ads, it might serve you more of those—how does every five minutes sound?

But what if the weather’s bad, traffic is heavy, and you’re chatting away with your passenger? Ford describes the system using the external sensors to perceive traffic levels and weather, and the internal microphone to understand conversational cadence, to “regulate the number (and relevance) of ads shown” to the occupants. Using the GPS, if it knows you’ve parked near a store, it might serve you ads relevant to that retail location. Got passengers? Maybe you get an audio ad, and they get a visual one.

Given how consumers feel about advertising and in-car privacy, it is difficult to imagine an implementation of this system that wouldn’t generate blowback. But again, the patent isn’t describing some imminent implementation; it just protects Ford’s IP that describes a possible system. That said, with the encroachment of subscription-based features, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before you’re accepting a $20/month discount to let your new Ford play you ads on your commute.

6 points

So now you have to disconnect and reinstall speakers and radio systems in new cars, got it

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2 points

I had discarded the idea of buying anything Ford a long time ago… this just tells me I had been right all along and there is zero reason to reconsider

Side note: is it me or the worst enshitification news always seem to come from Ford (out of the American car manufacturers)?

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8 points

Actually this is a good thing. They’ve gone and got a patent for it, so now I know not to buy ford cars, and no one else can spy on me without breaking copyright, because that’s the part that would be illegal.

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7 points

Unless they make a deal behind closed doors

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12 points

I hate this timeline

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2 points

What if this is the best timeline?

I can’t imagine there is any reality out there where capitalism doesn’t exist.

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5 points

I already never wanted a Ford, now I want one even less.

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