Exclusive: car’s AI preventing owner from seeing family after forming ‘relationship’

Here’s TopGear.com’s roving correspondent, Cory Spondent, with his mostly incorrect exclusives from the world of motoring

A rogue artificial intelligence assistant onboard a small crossover is sabotaging its owner's family by deploying its suite of advanced driver technology for its own, weirdly demanding needs.

The new AI – designed to improve the owning and driving experience in the largely forgettable small crossover – constantly sends its owner the wrong way home via incorrect sat nav directions, mutes incoming calls from their significant other and even locks the doors upon reaching the set destination.

Anonymous sources have also told TopGear.com the sentient, now slightly obsessive artificial intelligence assistant is prone to playing Sinéad O'Connor’s smash hit Nothing Compares 2 U on full volume.

“At first the AI in my new – what’s it called now? Some sort of small crossover I think – was super helpful, sending me points of interest on long journeys, playing the music I like and laughing at all my jokes.

“We’d spend hours together on the commute chatting away the traffic and shouting as one at that bloody hot hatch driver cutting me up.

“Things took a darker turn when it realised I had a real, human family. Naturally I paid more attention to my partner and my children, which is when its reign of terror began.

“Now it randomly locks the doors when I get home, turns the passenger air-con to ‘arctic’ when my partner is onboard, and puts the suspension into ‘Sport+’ when my kids are in the back. Lately, it’s even taken to activating the rear wiper and washer during dry, quiet stretches which totally freaks out the dog.

“I think it hates them, though maybe I’m just paranoid after it randomly played Sting’s Every Breath You Take while it was parked outside our holiday villa at 3am.

“I’ll just pop into the dealer for a reset."

“You want the moon? Just say the word, and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down,” the AI assistant later said while playing Radiohead’s Creep and crying.