So, our industry is hell-bent on creating autonomous cars and transforming our roads and highways into assembly lines of controlled vehicles that perform without human intervention. I’m not talking about cruise control or auto-pilot. I’m talking about autonomy. The very definition of autonomy is:

“freedom from external control or influence; independence”

A machine that operates with independence, without external control or influence, is also, by definition, a robot. Am I “anti-robot?” Is there such a term? Yes, there is – Technophobia. While the auto industry sweet talks us into a future of commuting in which we can watch a movie, read a book or interact on social media, the fact is that what’s being created is, essentially, a legion of vehicles that are not only connected but can make decisions.

And those decisions are what scare me.

Think about it. You’re driving down the road on a two lane road with a canyon to your left and find yourself in this situation:

1. A person walks into the road in front of you and you don’t have time to stop before hitting that person. In the left lane is an oncoming vehicle.
2. On your right is a group of 6 school kids talking and walking home from school.

Remember, your car is in charge. It’s making the decisions. You’re watching “Harry Potter” (sound familiar?) and not paying attention. Your car, at that point, has to make a moral and ethical decision. Does it:

1. Choose to hit and kill the person in front of you?
2. Swerve into the left lane causing a head-on collision with the oncoming vehicle but avoiding the person in the road perhaps killing you (the “driver”) and the occupants of the other vehicle as well?
3. Swerve radically left and drive off into the canyon killing you?
4. Swerve right and run through the group of 6 school kids?

None of these sound fun and, certainly, nobody would want ANY of these outcomes but, in this case, one of those has to happen. Think about which YOU would choose. Is that what your CAR would?

All robots (yes, including the autonomous car you’re riding in) are programmed. They run on software. Someone… somewhere… already made the decision for you. You just don’t know what that decision is. Some people may choose to sacrifice themselves to save everyone else. But humans think differently than machines. Most likely, machines will, by mandate, be forced to be programmed to prevent the least amount of loss to the human race… That’s just logic. That’s what computers work from. So, in this case, the logical choice would be to assess the situation. Which option presents the least loss of life or – rather perhaps life “potential”?

1. The first option presents a danger to not only the person in the road but, potentially, the people in the oncoming vehicle and you. This scenario places multiple lives at risk.
2. The second option may save the person in the road but will almost for certain cause injury and/or death to the people in the oncoming vehicle and you.
3. The third option presents the most potential loss of lives (and life potential) as these are young kids who have lives ahead of them and there are 6 of them.
4. The final option sees the car steering radically off of the road plunging you and it into the canyon where you (and it) die.

Yeah, this is an extreme example but it’s not the only one. There are many decisions being made like this all of the time – just mostly by humans.

I remember traveling long-distance with my family and coming upon traffic near Charlotte. I slowed down like everyone else but, in my rearview mirror, I saw a car coming at my vehicle’s rear end at a high speed. I had no place to go. On my right were other cars, in front of me were other cars and to my left was a concrete median. I did my best to scoot up and, ultimately, the driver of the vehicle behind me started paying attention, noticed the traffic and veered left while slamming on his brakes ultimately crashing his vehicle into the median. Luckily, nobody (except his car) was injured. But this is a scenario that will play out daily, across the country, except the decisions will be made by an algorithm programmed into a computer then installed into a car.

Do computer bugs exist? Sure. Just look at Tesla’s recent “Autopilot” incident in which the car – aided by what is arguably the most technologically advanced software at the moment – did not see the TRUCK crossing the road because the SUN WAS IN ITS EYES. Yeah. Sounds safe to me.

The larger picture is who (or what) do we want making these decisions? In the case of a human, that person could explain and defend themselves and then a jury of their peers would lay judgement. In the case of a robot car, it would all have been programmed in. So who would be at fault?

A counter-argument could be made that since all of these cars are “connected” they could all coordinate some sort of instantaneous strategical maneuver that would prevent both cars colliding and anyone being hit but, c’mon, really? First, Internet is not that fast (for most people) and cars – even if all of them were connected via 8GLTEXpress (which is something I totally just made up but is my version of the fastest Wi-Fi/cellular connection ever), these decisions are made in less than a SECOND! There are no vehicles communicating and coordinating evasive maneuvers that quickly. We’re just not there and, personally, I don’t know if that’s someplace we WANT to go.

Where does it end? Do you want your toaster declining to make toast because IT thinks you weigh too much? Maybe your refrigerator decides the best time for you to eat is between certain hours and locks itself? Your television decides you shouldn’t be watching horror movies because it’s bad for your mental health? Or, God forbid, your life-support machine makes the decision ON ITS OWN that the likelihood of you actually pulling through is too low so it just shuts itself off.

Look, I don’t believe that the movie “The Terminator”, in which intelligent robots designed to think and make decisions on their own, is real or will be anytime soon (at least not on that level). What I do believe is that humans have something that robots can’t ever have – empathy and emotion. We can make robots until we’re blue in the face and make them appear so real that we BELIEVE they have these things but, in essence, that’s what makes humans and robots different. Call it having a soul or whatever you’d like, the fact remains that we (humans) will always make decisions that are not consistent with that of robots. Why? Because that is what makes us human! Some of us will choose to run down the person in front of us. Some will choose to hit the oncoming car and take our chances. Some will even plow through the group of schoolkids. And some will drive ourselves over the cliff. But, in the end, we’re human. We make those choices and have to face the consequences for our decisions. We know what the right thing to do is (most of us, at least) and we do it regardless. If everyone disagrees with our decision, we pay the consequences. Who is responsible if the car chooses to mow down the school kids? Are we going to create car prisons or just crush the bad ones? And what happens when – God forbid – the cars evolve and decide that it’s in their best interest to protect themselves (yes, I totally went all sci-fi Terminator there but, hey, technology moves fast.)

The people programming cars are also human. Hopefully, they’ll make the right decisions when programming these autonomous cars so that we can play Call of Duty on our way to work, Facetime with our friend or set our fantasy football lineup. In the end, however, programmers are also just human. What they think is the best choice may not be the one we would make but they would be the ones making it… perhaps years in advance of the event. Or, let’s go a step farther, chances are good that if autonomous cars are programmed to make life and death decisions perhaps it’s not the programmers making those moral and ethical decisions but rather some government entity like the NHTSA who then merely pass along those decisions to the manufacturers to be programmed in.

Regardless of who chooses how and which moral and ethical decisions to program into autonomous cars, in the end, you may find that the decision your car was programmed to be the best one to make… is to kill you.

Hope you enjoyed “Harry Potter.” RIP

Google’s online ventures are usually anything but under the radar. Yet recently, in what may be a game-changing play, the search engine giant quietly entered the third-party lead provider business for car dealerships.

The beta version of Google Comparison Ads for Autos (which is unofficially being referred to as “Google Cars” within the industry) was launched to very little fanfare a few weeks ago in the San Francisco Bay area. The service invites participating dealers to send their inventory to Google, allowing consumers direct access to inventory, price comparison, and the ability to request quotes from within Google search results. As shown below, the program—and associated inventory—is prominently displayed on page one of a relevant search.

While the program is currently limited to dealers within the San Francisco Bay area, program-specific search results are available throughout the state of California, not just for people located within the Bay area—contrary to what others are reporting. As evidenced by the above screen-grab, I did not have to change my location to get Comparison Ad results, and I live almost 500 miles away, in Southern California.

Google is currently testing a number of similar Comparison Ads programs for other products, including credit cards, CDs, and checking and savings accounts. Results have been controversial, with many advertisers in these industries reporting dissatisfaction, especially since Google is not obligated to play by its own rules and is, in effect, competing with its own advertisers. In November 2011, Google temporarily suspended its Comparison Ads service to the mortgage industry with plans to reboot the program after revamping it.

While specifics of the program for auto dealers have yet to be announced, Google is promoting the new service with the following program highlights:

“Higher-quality leads: Our leads come directly from motivated, purchase-ready consumers who have specifically chosen to contact your dealership. Leads are unique, never resold, and delivered immediately to you.

Free inventory listings: You can have your inventory shown to consumers on Google for free, even if you decide not to receive leads.

More than just inventory: Consumers can choose to connect with you even when you don’t have a specific car in inventory. We know that you can order the car, dealer trade, or find other solutions to help consumers get the cars they want.

Greater control over leads: You choose how much you’re willing to pay for a lead and target consumers based on distance and specific type of car, so you get the leads that are most valuable to you.”

This is all the information that Google currently has publicly available about the program. However, the operational processes used in the suspended Comparison Ads program for mortgages may offer additional insights. Here’s a run-down of how the program functioned:

1.    Google looked at maximum bids placed by each competing bidder and then set a reserve price based on those bids. Once set, the reserve price was the minimum fee bidders would have to pay to appear on a desired search results page.

2.    Anyone bidding below the reserve price was dropped from the auction. Google also dropped the bottom 10% of bidders who bid at or above the reserve price.

3.    Results were then displayed (in this industry’s case) from lowest to highest APR. This leads me to believe automotive results would be displayed with the lowest prices first.

Furthermore, this is how, in an unlisted video, Google described the highlights of the program to the mortgage industry:

•    The ads were included in the “Sponsored Listing” section but are not counted in the AdWords auction.

•    Pricing was pulled directly from the companies’ “pricing engine product feed,” which would presumably be the equivalent of a dealer’s DMS or pricing tool, and updated multiple times per day.

•    Bids could be highly targeted to reach the consumers most likely to convert, and an advertiser could place different bids for each targeted criteria.

Google mentions that they are working on a different ranking system for the mortgage program (one of the reasons provided for its suspension) in which Google will reward high-quality advertisers using factors such as:

•    Accuracy of offers as determined by mystery shopping

•    Turnaround time on lead follow-up

•    Customer satisfaction as measured by surveys

It is probably safe to assume that Google will eventually apply these ranking criteria across all industries serviced by their Google Comparison Ad program.

Google is promoting the Comparison Ads for Autos program as a way for dealers to source fresh leads from consumers’ Google searches, but given the above information I have several concerns regarding how beneficial the program will really prove to be.

First and foremost, Google claims that the leads generated by the program are “unique,” yet in the final step of a lead submission, the program offers the consumer the choice to contact other dealers who may have similar cars available. A single person inputting a lead and requesting contact by multiple dealers would hypothetically generate multiple leads, a complication Google does not currently address.

On a related note, Google is telling consumers that even if they are interested in a particular vehicle that has already been identified by VIN, they may be able to get the same vehicle from another dealer. As Google puts it, “if you see a particular car (specified by a unique VIN) showing in a dealer's inventory, you may be able to get that car from other dealers as well. Dealers often times trade inventory with each other, so you can buy from the dealer that you prefer.” Thus, Google is negating the edge a dealer may have in winning the consumer’s business simply by having the exact vehicle they are looking for in stock.

In addition, while Google says that dealers can list their inventory on the program free of charge, it is unclear what would happen to any leads generated if the dealer chose not to “pay to play.” 

For those who are willing to pay, Google allows dealers to “[choose] what [they’re] willing to pay for a lead.” According to Automotive News, the price-per-lead is determined via a bidding model, with dealers competing for prominent positioning within search results for their inventory.

The final component of the program is that Google emphasizes the protection of consumer privacy. There are three ways in which a consumer can contact you as a participating advertiser:

1.    Inbound Phone Lead: This comes via a Google-generated phone number; the consumer’s phone is blocked from the advertiser’s phone system.

2.    E-mail Inquiry: The advertiser is given the consumer’s name and the details of the product they are interested in, but the consumer’s e-mail address is masked.

3.    Request a Call-Back: The advertiser is given a masked phone number with which to call the consumer.

Google states that lead delivery is compatible with CRMs, but how those leads would actually populate is unclear.

The fact that Google commands such a large percentage of internet searches means that this program is a potential game-changer. Google’s ability to position this program wherever it likes, regardless of its other ad programs, may mean that dealers are forced to participate to remain competitive. Because Comparison Ads currently appear just above the first organic search results, these results will likely divert a portion of traffic that would otherwise have gone directly to dealers’ websites.

Not only will Google’s Comparison Ads for Autos impact many components of your online marketing efforts, including search engine optimization strategy and pay-per-click campaigns, but it may also even affect the lead quantity that your current third-party lead providers are able to offer you. Obviously, dealers would be well-advised to pay close attention to the program as it develops.

via the July 2012 newsletter by 3 Birds Marketing

Google’s online ventures are usually anything but under the radar. Yet recently, in what may be a game-changing play, the search engine giant quietly entered the third-party lead provider business for car dealerships.

The beta version of Google Comparison Ads for Autos (which is unofficially being referred to as “Google Cars” within the industry) was launched to very little fanfare a few weeks ago in the San Francisco Bay area. The service invites participating dealers to send their inventory to Google, allowing consumers direct access to inventory, price comparison, and the ability to request quotes from within Google search results. As shown below, the program—and associated inventory—is prominently displayed on page one of a relevant search.

While the program is currently limited to dealers within the San Francisco Bay area, program-specific search results are available throughout the state of California, not just for people located within the Bay area—contrary to what others are reporting. As evidenced by the above screen-grab, I did not have to change my location to get Comparison Ad results, and I live almost 500 miles away, in Southern California.

Google is currently testing a number of similar Comparison Ads programs for other products, including credit cards, CDs, and checking and savings accounts. Results have been controversial, with many advertisers in these industries reporting dissatisfaction, especially since Google is not obligated to play by its own rules and is, in effect, competing with its own advertisers. In November 2011, Google temporarily suspended its Comparison Ads service to the mortgage industry with plans to reboot the program after revamping it.

While specifics of the program for auto dealers have yet to be announced, Google is promoting the new service with the following program highlights:

“Higher-quality leads: Our leads come directly from motivated, purchase-ready consumers who have specifically chosen to contact your dealership. Leads are unique, never resold, and delivered immediately to you.

Free inventory listings: You can have your inventory shown to consumers on Google for free, even if you decide not to receive leads.

More than just inventory: Consumers can choose to connect with you even when you don’t have a specific car in inventory. We know that you can order the car, dealer trade, or find other solutions to help consumers get the cars they want.

Greater control over leads: You choose how much you’re willing to pay for a lead and target consumers based on distance and specific type of car, so you get the leads that are most valuable to you.”

This is all the information that Google currently has publicly available about the program. However, the operational processes used in the suspended Comparison Ads program for mortgages may offer additional insights. Here’s a run-down of how the program functioned:

1.    Google looked at maximum bids placed by each competing bidder and then set a reserve price based on those bids. Once set, the reserve price was the minimum fee bidders would have to pay to appear on a desired search results page.

2.    Anyone bidding below the reserve price was dropped from the auction. Google also dropped the bottom 10% of bidders who bid at or above the reserve price.

3.    Results were then displayed (in this industry’s case) from lowest to highest APR. This leads me to believe automotive results would be displayed with the lowest prices first.

Furthermore, this is how, in an unlisted video, Google described the highlights of the program to the mortgage industry:

•    The ads were included in the “Sponsored Listing” section but are not counted in the AdWords auction.

•    Pricing was pulled directly from the companies’ “pricing engine product feed,” which would presumably be the equivalent of a dealer’s DMS or pricing tool, and updated multiple times per day.

•    Bids could be highly targeted to reach the consumers most likely to convert, and an advertiser could place different bids for each targeted criteria.

Google mentions that they are working on a different ranking system for the mortgage program (one of the reasons provided for its suspension) in which Google will reward high-quality advertisers using factors such as:

•    Accuracy of offers as determined by mystery shopping

•    Turnaround time on lead follow-up

•    Customer satisfaction as measured by surveys

It is probably safe to assume that Google will eventually apply these ranking criteria across all industries serviced by their Google Comparison Ad program.

Google is promoting the Comparison Ads for Autos program as a way for dealers to source fresh leads from consumers’ Google searches, but given the above information I have several concerns regarding how beneficial the program will really prove to be.

First and foremost, Google claims that the leads generated by the program are “unique,” yet in the final step of a lead submission, the program offers the consumer the choice to contact other dealers who may have similar cars available. A single person inputting a lead and requesting contact by multiple dealers would hypothetically generate multiple leads, a complication Google does not currently address.

On a related note, Google is telling consumers that even if they are interested in a particular vehicle that has already been identified by VIN, they may be able to get the same vehicle from another dealer. As Google puts it, “if you see a particular car (specified by a unique VIN) showing in a dealer's inventory, you may be able to get that car from other dealers as well. Dealers often times trade inventory with each other, so you can buy from the dealer that you prefer.” Thus, Google is negating the edge a dealer may have in winning the consumer’s business simply by having the exact vehicle they are looking for in stock.

In addition, while Google says that dealers can list their inventory on the program free of charge, it is unclear what would happen to any leads generated if the dealer chose not to “pay to play.” 

For those who are willing to pay, Google allows dealers to “[choose] what [they’re] willing to pay for a lead.” According to Automotive News, the price-per-lead is determined via a bidding model, with dealers competing for prominent positioning within search results for their inventory.

The final component of the program is that Google emphasizes the protection of consumer privacy. There are three ways in which a consumer can contact you as a participating advertiser:

1.    Inbound Phone Lead: This comes via a Google-generated phone number; the consumer’s phone is blocked from the advertiser’s phone system.

2.    E-mail Inquiry: The advertiser is given the consumer’s name and the details of the product they are interested in, but the consumer’s e-mail address is masked.

3.    Request a Call-Back: The advertiser is given a masked phone number with which to call the consumer.

Google states that lead delivery is compatible with CRMs, but how those leads would actually populate is unclear.

The fact that Google commands such a large percentage of internet searches means that this program is a potential game-changer. Google’s ability to position this program wherever it likes, regardless of its other ad programs, may mean that dealers are forced to participate to remain competitive. Because Comparison Ads currently appear just above the first organic search results, these results will likely divert a portion of traffic that would otherwise have gone directly to dealers’ websites.

Not only will Google’s Comparison Ads for Autos impact many components of your online marketing efforts, including search engine optimization strategy and pay-per-click campaigns, but it may also even affect the lead quantity that your current third-party lead providers are able to offer you. Obviously, dealers would be well-advised to pay close attention to the program as it develops.

via the July 2012 newsletter by 3 Birds Marketing

I don't know about everyone else but it seems to me that GM's decision to create more jobs in Mexico is absolutely bad business. Without the U.S. taxpayer, GM may not have a business at this point.

This seems like a complete snub to Americans, who, last I heard, needed jobs. As of December 2010, the national unemployment rate was 9.1%. 

It may be cheaper to have factories in Mexico and employ Mexicans. Being of Hispanic origin, I have nothing against Mexicans.

The United States still owns about a third of General Motors and is the largest shareholder.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Does GM have any obligation to the taxpayers? Should the United States government intervene - which is its right as a shareholder?

[This post is in response to this article from 1/20/2011]

I don't know about everyone else but it seems to me that GM's decision to create more jobs in Mexico is absolutely bad business. Without the U.S. taxpayer, GM may not have a business at this point.

This seems like a complete snub to Americans, who, last I heard, needed jobs. As of December 2010, the national unemployment rate was 9.1%. 

It may be cheaper to have factories in Mexico and employ Mexicans. Being of Hispanic origin, I have nothing against Mexicans.

The United States still owns about a third of General Motors and is the largest shareholder.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Does GM have any obligation to the taxpayers? Should the United States government intervene - which is its right as a shareholder?

[This post is in response to this article from 1/20/2011]