Volkswagen will restore physical buttons to the dashboard in its latest compact car, part of a wider move away from touchscreens.

In a particularly retro touch, the new ID Polo will even have a volume dial.

For a decade or so, automakers rushed to replace knobs and switches with screens, Autoblog noted in October, but users largely disliked them: Controlling the air conditioning, for example, required delving through submenus while driving, which was both difficult and dangerous. Research found that using touchscreens took longer and distracted drivers.

Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and VW have all announced plans to return to more tactile controls, and US and EU regulators announced last year that cars with touchscreen controls could get worse safety ratings.

  • jj4211@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The people wanted actual reasoning AI, not generative AI. They didn’t expect us to devote most of our nominal economic activity toward a few big tech companies to get it. They didn’t expect them to assert that text generators are ‘reasoning’ and when called on it declare that it’s not reasoning as humanity has known it, but here’s some buzzwords to justify us claiming it’s a whole new sort of reasoning that’s just as valuable.

    • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Even though it’s not intelligent at all, chatGPT seemed groundbreaking when it arrived. Big promises were made and implausible amounts invested, and it doesn’t really seem to have gone anywhere since. It’s the same thing, just a bit better.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        And I’d be more ok with LLM technology in general if not for:

        • The rampant copyright infringement
        • The overcommitment of financial and actual resources

        In and of itself, ok a neat little trick with some utility so long as it isn’t taken too seriously.