In-Car Surveillance is Coming | Diet TBPN

Summary

TBPN Podcast Summary

Episode: In-Car Surveillance is Coming | Diet TBPN
Date: April 28, 2026
Hosts: John Coogan & Jordi Hays

---

Overview

This episode breaks down the viral and controversial topic of federally mandated in-car surveillance and AI-based intoxication detection, predicted (or rumored) to be required for all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2027. The hosts dive into the facts, address widespread fears, discuss technological and policy realities, and explore implications for privacy, car culture, and tech trends. Additional topics include a bug in OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 model, viral AI video mashups, and a look at live updates from the Elon Musk–versus–New York Times court case.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reality of Looming In-Car Surveillance (00:02–08:34)

• Viral Panic vs. Real Policy
  • The episode opens by referencing a viral post claiming federal law will soon require AI-driven, constant driver surveillance in all new cars sold by 2027—sparking fear and "fake news" cycles.
  • John emphasizes the need to “truth zone it,” noting, “It might not matter because if you get in a robo taxi, there's definitely gonna be a camera on you.” [00:08]
• Historical Comparison: Drinking & Driving Crackdowns
  • The hosts play a vintage video showing backlash to earlier anti-drunk driving laws, highlighting a persistent tension between safety regulation and personal liberty.
  • Memorable quote from the video: “A fellow can't put in a hard day's work, put in 11, 12 hours a day, and then get in your truck and at least drink one or two beers.” [01:37]
• Mandate Details & Timeline
  • Congress passed a mandate directing NHTSA to standardize advanced drunk driving prevention technology for new vehicles.
  • The “2027 deadline” is flexible; the NHTSA will only set a binding mandate when tech is ready: “The NHTSA currently says that the technology is not ready.” [03:10]
• The Technology Landscape
  • Existing systems for detecting intoxication (breathalyzers, fingerprint readers, AI-powered cameras).
  • The push is for “passive” systems (e.g., in-car breath sensors, fingerprint reading on ignition).
    • “If it smells alcohol, it doesn't turn on the car.” [04:17]
  • AI promises 99.9%+ accuracy but still could mean millions of false positives yearly due to sheer volume.
    • “If this system is 99.9% accurate, you're still looking at tens of millions of incorrect results every year… the vast majority of those are going to be people who are sober.” [05:29]
• False Positives & Unintended Consequences
  • Example: cologne or fatigue might get flagged as intoxication; major inconvenience for sober drivers [05:52].
  • Potential issues in emergencies (e.g., escaping a tsunami)—AI may lack the needed nuance [07:33].
• Political & Privacy Debate
  • Bipartisan support for the mandate but growing libertarian backlash over privacy and potential “remote kill switches.”
  • “That is not in the current provision. That's not what's actually being proposed right now.” [06:36]
• Moderate Solution: “Pre-Drive Lockout”
  • The consensus solution is pre-drive lockout (car won’t start, but AI won’t shut down car at speed), though still not problem-free.

2. Car Culture, Collectibility, and Future Value (09:41–11:09)

• Future of “Unwatched” Cars
  • John discusses how classic cars may see value spikes as “the last one that didn’t have the camera that looked at you 24/7.”
    • “There's going to be a world where you're like, oh, that was the last one that didn't have the camera that looked at you 24, 7 or whatever. And I think it creates this like new class of vintage investment.” [10:28]
  • People may rush to buy 2026 cars to avoid surveillance features.

3. AI, GPT-5.5, and the Mystery of ‘Goblin Mode’ (11:16–12:49)

• Coding Agent Bugs
  • Comment on GPT-5.5 Codex system prompt, which specifically commands: “Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query.” [11:48]
  • The model exhibits a strange emergent property: it persistently references creatures.
    • “The model itself yearns to discuss creatures. Goblins, raccoons.” [12:25]
  • Humor: “It's goblin mode.” [12:25]
• Community & Inside Jokes
  • Reference to Thibaut’s open-source prompt, poking fun at the bug.
  • Example from user: “My 5.5 codec said goblin with a flashlight when referring to a bug fix yesterday.” [12:56]

4. AI Video Mashups & Copyright Commentary (13:07–15:31)

• Viral Moment: Star Wars Pawn Stars
  • AI-generated mashups are going viral, combining major IP (Star Wars, Pawn Stars) for comedic/sketch content that’s only possible in a “piracy world.” [14:18]
    • “The business case for AI video is still a little bit more narrow and I think it will be tucked in the tool section… the next moment of AI in Hollywood is very much tool driven.” [14:41]
  • Hollywood’s use of generative AI seen as supportive/complementary to VFX workflows for now, not wholesale entertainment disruption.
• Audio Over Video
  • Observations that “the audio is what gives it away” when AI videos seem off [13:37–14:03].

5. Real-Time Reporting: Elon Musk vs. New York Times (15:31–16:32)

• Courtroom Live Blogging
  • Shoutout to Mike Isaac’s live blog from a high-profile court case involving Elon Musk.
  • Notable moment: “Elon's lawyer's microphone turned off four times in the course of his opening statement. Judge says, ‘What can I tell you? We are funded by the federal government.’” [15:58]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We got to sort of truth zone it. But also it's coming.” — John Coogan [00:03]
• “If you get in a robo taxi, there's definitely gonna be a camera on you.” — John Coogan [00:11]
• “We are having audio issues. It's most likely a nation state, potentially possible. We are under attack.” — Jordi Hays (tongue-in-cheek) [00:52]
• “A fellow can't put in a hard day's work, put in 11, 12 hours a day, and then get in your truck and at least drink one or two beers.” — Vintage video clip [01:37]
• “If it smells alcohol, it doesn't turn on the car.” — John Coogan [04:17]
• "You can imagine an AI startup... that's 90% of the way there, maybe 99.9% of the way there. But...if this system is 99.9% accurate, you're still looking at tens of millions of incorrect results every year." — John Coogan [05:19]
• “Tinfoil enthusiasts.” — Jordi Hays, introducing a new term for conspiracy theorists [07:06]
• “There's going to be a world where you're like, oh, that was the last one that didn't have the camera that looked at you 24, 7 or whatever.” — John Coogan [10:28]
• “The model itself yearns to discuss creatures. Goblins, raccoons. It is an emergent property of Super Intelligence VI.” — Jordi Hays [12:25]

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:02 – 05:46: In-car AI surveillance, legal background, technical feasibility, initial backlash
• 05:46 – 08:34: Privacy issues, false positives, workarounds, “pre-drive lockout”
• 08:34 – 11:09: Car collectibility, “unwatched” vehicles, future classics
• 11:16 – 12:49: GPT-5.5 and the "goblin mode" bug
• 13:07 – 15:31: AI-generated video mashups and copyright
• 15:31 – 16:32: Live blogging from Musk/NYT trial courtroom

---

Conclusion

This episode deftly straddles sensational tech headlines and nuanced realities behind looming legislation, digging into what’s real, what’s likely, and what remains sci-fi regarding in-car AI surveillance. The hosts’ banter keeps things light as they punctuate the topics with funny moments and up-to-the-minute tech culture references, making the show both insightful and entertaining for tech-savvy listeners and concerned car owners alike.

Transcript

[A]

I wrote about this in car surveillance thing. It's going viral. It's sort of fake news. We got to sort of truth zone it. But also it's coming. And it might not matter because if you get in a robo taxi, there's definitely gonna be a camera on you. But the fear is centered around this idea that there will be a requirement from the federal government that every new car sold in the United States will be required by law to have technology, uh oh, that puts constant surveillance on the driver. And this is happening sooner than you think. By 2027, that's just 12 months away. AI in your car will determine if you're sober and fit to drive, automatically turning off the vehicle.

[B]

It's almost May, by the way.

[A]

I know. We're what, eight months away, I guess, from 2027. This is the real AI 2027 problem. This is a big problem.

[B]

We are having audio issues. It's most likely a nation state, potentially possible. We are under attack. We are working on it.

[A]

It's like watching a dubbed foreign film. Well, maybe we can play this video of what happened the last time America tried to pull back on driving a car while intoxicated. And some of the. Some of the response, some of the

[C]

backlash from any attempt to restrict drinking and driving here is viewed.

[A]

Can we pull this up? Okay, we're working on it.

[B]

Anyway, production team is being humbled this morning.

[A]

Humbled. Anyway, let me read through some of my take and then we'll play that funny video.

[D]

So.

[A]

Sounds scary. Yeah, let's play this video.

[C]

Drinking and driving here is viewed by some as downright undemocratic.

[E]

It's kind of getting common, this one. A fellow can't put in a hard day's work, put in 11, 12 hours a day, and then get in your truck and at least drink one or two beers.

[F]

They're making it laws where you can't drink when you want to. You have to wear a seat belt when you're driving. And pretty soon we're gonna be calm. This country. Calmness country.

[B]

When was that? Was that the.

[A]

Apparently that's real. I've seen that video before. I always thought it was fake. I didn't realize that that was real. That feels like 80s, 70s, something like that.

[D]

80s.

[A]

Okay. Well, there was backlash then and there's backlash now. Some of it's a little bit overblown. This sounds very scary. You know, constant surveillance. The real crazy version is camera that's watching you at all times. The government, the police and the automaker can just turn off Your car whenever they want. That sounds bad. What's actually being proposed? What's actually on the timetable? So the rationale for this is good and I think most people would agree that it is a reasonable thing to do to try and curb alcohol related vehicle accidents. Drunk driving. There's more than 10,000 alcohol related deaths each year on US roads. That's a ton. Anything we can do to stop that, reduce that, totally worth working on, totally worth pursuing, as long as it doesn't violate a whole bunch of other liberties or create more problems than it solves.

[D]

Right.

[A]

We want net positive impact here. Technology is getting better at detecting intoxication and it's getting a lot cheaper. So why not just ship drunk driver detection system with every car from the factory? That's the proposal. There are a bunch of potential downsides that we can get into, but it's important to get set the facts straights about set the facts straight about where we actually stand today. So the core concept here is generally correct. Congress did pass a mandate directing the NHTSA to create a standard for advanced drunk driving prevention technology in new passenger vehicles. Now, the 2027 date that people are citing, that's not a hard deadline. The law was passed back in 2024 and in the actual law, it basically allowed for delays. So they said the NHTSA will only issue a binding mandate requiring automakers to actually roll out this tech when the tech is ready. And the NHTSA currently says that the technology is not ready. So in theory, the tech feels close, but the scale of the problem is so big, you can see why there's a delay here. Alcohol detection systems exist and are typically deployed for drivers with DUIs. You're familiar with blowing in the tube? Probably. Hopefully not personally, but the problem is that those little hoses that you blow into, those are active systems. They require you to actually sit there and do that for a min. The government doesn't want that. That's not what the proposal is.

[B]

They want passive.

[A]

They want passive, which means breath sensing. So there's just like smell o vision. Basically, if it smells alcohol, it doesn't turn on the car. The other one is fingerprint reading. So you put your finger on the start button and it scans into your finger and sees how many alcohol particles are inside. I guess that sounds sci fi, but we're close. I guess there's a couple other ways you can solve that. And then camera system, just look at the, at the driver. If they look drunk, then don't turn on the car. So all of these seem like they could be close to being roughly accurate right now. Like, you can imagine an AI startup or a university lab putting something together at a hackathon that's 90% of the way there, maybe 99% of the way there, maybe even 99.9% of the way there. But the problem is that Americans drive a lot. The rough estimate is that there are almost a quarter trillion driving trips per year in America. It's basically every American, all 350 million of them, basically taking an average of two trips every single day of the year. So 224 billion trips a year is what the rough back of the envelope I did was. And what that means in practice is that if this system is 99.9% accurate, you're still looking at tens of millions of incorrect results every year. And the fact that probably 99.9% of these trips are not inebriated. Like, drunk driving is not 50% of trips, it's not 1% of trips. It's a very small amount.

[B]

How people would abuse this new system. It'd be like students being like, sorry, I couldn't make it to the exam.

[A]

Exactly. Dog ate my lunch. My car wouldn't start because of a false positive on this. And so even if you're at 99%, you're still looking at tens of millions of incorrect results. The vast majority of those are going to be people who are sober. Somebody wants to get in their car for their morning commute, they're a little sleepy, or they wore some cologne that triggered some sensor system flags them as intoxicated and prevents them from starting their car. And it's infuriating. The tech will probably get there with enough time and effort. So it's worth looking into who supports this and opposes it. The mandate was actually bipartisan, but there's starting to be a backlash from libertarian conservatives who are worried about Orwellian government controls. There's an idea that there will be a remote kill switch, which leads to a bunch of dystopian possibilities. That is not in the current provision. That's not what's actually being proposed right now. But, you know, it's possible that at the end that the end result of

[D]

this process of back and forth, you

[A]

do wind up with that exact capability. And so people are worried about the system going off while you're driving at speed on the roads, and then the car just shuts off and you get in a crash. And that's like, actually more dangerous than potentially the alternative. And so the middle ground seems to be what's Called pre drive lockout.

[B]

We need a tinfoil expert. The tinfoil enthusiasts have been saying that the sort of remote.

[D]

Are you using tinfoil enthusiasts to mean conspiracy theorist?

[A]

I've never heard that before.

[B]

It's good, doc. That's a new one.

[A]

Okay. Yes.

[B]

So tinfoil enthusiasts.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Have been claiming.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That the remote shutoff button has existed forever.

[D]

Oh yeah.

[A]

Since the, since the.

[B]

So when, when, when some sort of like, you know, witness or something like that just gets in a very inconveniently timed high speed wreck, that is the shutdown.

[A]

Oh, okay. I was unfair conspiracy theory. It's interesting though. But yeah, so I mean the current, the current like consensus is around maybe pre drive lockout being the more moderate solution than shutting the car off once it's driving. Still incredibly, incredibly inconvenient if there's false positives. And then you also do still run into some potential negative outcomes where you go to the beach, you have a couple glasses of wine, you're not planning on leaving, but then the tsunami warning goes off, you need to get back in your car and your car says no. Like I don't care that there's a tsunami. Oh, I don't care that there's a tsunami. You have had two glasses of wine, you're at 0.08, you can't drive right now and you need to tell the car, well, in this case I'm okay with driving drunk because the tsunami is coming and I'm at the beach and I had a couple glasses of wine and the car won't be able to potentially deal with that nuance. Right, right. And there's a whole bunch of other. Yeah. And there's a whole bunch of other scenarios that could potentially play out. Just judiciousness is, is difficult but potentially

[D]

unlocked, you know, AI agents.

[A]

I don't know. You know, you ask these models what would they do in some certain scenario. Maybe there's a solution.

[B]

Yeah, I think there's a much, much stronger argument for rolling this out is the average vehicle is just full self driving has full self driving capability, but

[A]

then you don't need it because you

[D]

can be as drunk as you want.

[B]

No, I still think there's going to be this big window where you're not going to be able to. Paul, specifically, because if you need, as long as somebody needs to sit in the front seat of their car, potentially take over in any type of situation.

[A]

I like the idea of level four self driving. You get in the car, there's one

[D]

button you push to say, hey, just

[A]

Put it in self driving mode. I've had a couple drinks. Don't let me take the wheel, no

[B]

matter how hard I try to negotiate.

[A]

It's all disabled. It's just Playmobil level. But then there's a second button and for that you have to do a full blood transfusion. They centrifuge your blood and make sure

[D]

that you have the purest blood possible

[A]

to take the wheel and be able to actually drive the vehicle.

[B]

There may be something there.

[A]

I did have a take on this though, which is that Doug Demero, friend of the show, founder of carsandbids.com has always talked about the eras of cars. You know, the air cooled Porsches, then you have the fully manual, no electronic systems, no stability control, no traction control, those types of cars. Then you get into the manual gearboxes, the no turbos, no hybrid systems. And then the modern supercar era. It's just a bonus if it's not a full electric car. It's like, you know it's going to be a hybrid. But is it? Is it, is it? At least there's an engine of some sort. And that's what car collectors are sort of marking these moments where it's like it's the last manual, it's the last non, you know, non hybrid supercar made by Ferrari or something like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's going to be a world where you're like, oh, that was the last one that didn't have the camera that looked at you 24, 7 or whatever. And I think it creates this like new class of like vintage investment.

[B]

Investment grade.

[A]

Maybe not investment grade, but certainly something that people, I mean you can already see people reacting to this. Even though the post is like a little bit overhyped, you can already see people reacting to it being like, I got to buy a 20, 26 and hold on to it forever and keep it in great condition because I don't want that. But anyway, there's been a pushback on this stuff for a long time. Tyler, do you have anything on, on cars? Are you old enough to drive?

[G]

I was just thinking like, like, what do you think the premium is for a car that you can still like drunk driving?

[A]

I think, I think your car is,

[D]

is gonna go through.

[B]

This is not, this is not, this is not even worth joking about.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Anyway, bad joke, stop the charade, move on.

[D]

Moving on.

[A]

What else is going on? We gotta talk about the GPT 5.5 prompt for Codex, which seems to have a duplicated line trying to get it to not talk about creatures. Tyler, you dug into this. What is actually going on?

[G]

Yeah, so it just seems like there was some, like, emergent property of the new model where it always tries to talk about kind of creatures and goblins, raccoons, ogres are in there.

[B]

Trolls, ogres, pigeons.

[G]

They had to counteract this, right? You have to put it in the system prompt. Tell it not to do this.

[D]

Where is this creatures?

[A]

Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query. This reminds me of those old image prompts where there would be a negative prompt that specifically said, do not put six fingers on the human's hand. But what a weird one, and what an odd line to throw into a coding agent. Like, do we know anything else about this? If people dug into, like, what is actually going on here?

[G]

I mean, it might not be just the coding agent. It's probably just the model in general,

[B]

but it's the model itself.

[A]

It's goblin mode.

[B]

The model itself yearns to discuss creatures. Goblins, raccoons. It is an emergent property of Super

[A]

Intelligence VI says they had to put this in due to my effect on the company. Goblins, creatures sort of followed me in through the front door when I joined. And we are only just now starting to understand the downstream effects of their presence.

[D]

And Thibaut says, never talk about goblins,

[A]

gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it's absolutely nothing.

[B]

There's so many. If, you know, you know, somebody says, my. My 5.5 codec said goblin with a flashlight when referring to a bug fix yesterday.

[D]

Star wars meets Pawn Stars. Have you seen this video? Have you watched this, Jordy?

[G]

I did.

[D]

Crazy. I saw the first second. I haven't watched the full thing, but I think it's.

[B]

It's pretty incredible.

[H]

I have items to pawn.

[I]

All right, let's see what you got. Okay, so these are lightsabers.

[H]

Correct.

[I]

So where'd you get them? Estate sale.

[B]

It's so funny that you can clock it by the audio more than the video.

[D]

It's very weird.

[H]

For many years, it is a great passion of mine. Each lightsaber has a story. There is a certain.

[D]

Yeah, I guess the character is CGI to begin with, so it's easy.

[A]

It's harder to clock.

[D]

But even video, or maybe it's edited

[A]

together, I don't know.

[D]

But, yeah, you're 100, right. It's the audio that's awful.

[I]

That's rough, man. How much are you looking to get for him?

[H]

A hundred thousand credits?

[I]

Look, I'll give you 50 bucks for him, you fool.

[D]

It's interesting that why that's popular is because it's this mashup between two intellectual pieces of property and they're not being compensated for that. And so there's like this thing that can only exist in the piracy world, basically. Like if someone. If you had recreated this without leveraging Star Wars IP or Pawn Stars IP doesn't go viral.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And so the business case for AI video is still a little bit more narrow and I think it will be tucked in the tool section. I was looking a lot at the Aflac project that he sold to Netflix and some of the background replacements, some of the VFX stuff. It feels like the way even though this is one shotting entertainment, it feels like the next moment of AI in Hollywood is very much tool driven, you know, leveraging things like, you know, green screen removal and object replacement, VFX workflows and just sort of speeding up remote or like rote tasks. But people will continue to have fun with these mashups and I'm sure we'll see many more of them on the timeline.

[B]

The other news, Mike Isaac and his team over at the New York Times are in the courtroom live blogging.

[D]

They went.

[B]

They're blogging. Yeah, they're blogging. It is.

[A]

There's some crazy moments.

[B]

There's some crazy, crazy moments. Moments already.

[D]

The judge.

[B]

We'll try to put some of them together. The judge is doing. The judge is doing bits. Apparently Elon's lawyer's microphone turned off four times in the course of his opening statement.

[D]

Or maybe like the screen turned off at one point. I saw some different.

[B]

Yeah, apparently on the.

[D]

There were technical issues.

[B]

Fifth or so time. The judge says, what can I tell you? We are funded by the federal government. So that's why she's running. She's running bits. But highly recommend going over and.

[D]

Yeah, Mike Isaac and looking.

[B]

Their posts are still rolling in. It's a lot to go through because it's hours and hours and hours of content. But we'll try to pull out some of the highlights and go through it on tomorrow's show.

[D]

The other thing you should listen to is Patrick o' Shaughnessy had Paul Tudor Jones, one of the greatest macro traders of all time on Invest like the best. It's an hour and 11 minutes and you should go listen to it. So go take a listen. It already has 5000 likes 1.7 million views. Not nearly enough downloads. So go add it to your podcast player right now. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcast Spotify. Sign up for our newsletter tvpn.com can't

[B]

wait to see you tomorrow. Have the best afternoon of your life. We love you.

[D]

Goodbye Flashbang out. Goodbye.