Tesla's AI trainers don't trust its self-driving tech – or its safety stats
reuters.comI'm generally defensive of Reuters coverage of Tesla (most of the things Musk has called lies turned out to be true) but this one does seem overly sensationalized. About half of the article focuses on the fact that Tesla does precision mapping and annotation of routes...which yes, all self-driving cars rely on this, it's a major safety advantage they have over human drivers that don't have access to a 3D map and near real time feed of road conditions everywhere. They also have teams scrutinizing collisions and near misses to improve the system. I'm not sure why Reuters frames all this as a deceptive "behind the curtain" thing or a strike against the safety of the system.
The rest is about the flaws of Tesla's safety statistics, which Tesla themselves appeared to acknowledge on their last big earnings call where they said wider launch of Robotaxi would have to wait for software improvements to improve safety. This is why getting safety information from a neutral party is so important.
I guess that first piece was important to me. I actually assumed, based on statements Musk has made in the past, that they are purely working off cameras and AI. Isn't that his whole pitch as to why Tesla FSD will scale out faster than waymo?
I believe there is some level of deception there that needs to be stated.
> Tesla does precision mapping and annotation of routes...which yes, all self-driving cars rely on this
Musk has long promised that Tesla's don't need this. Tesla's approach is to be able to drive anywhere, as opposed to only in precisely mapped regions. So this is a major fail.
My first thought was "Tesla is making AI shoes?"
TL;DR - Former Tesla data labelers say FSD relies on laborious mapping for hazards. Crash data analysis shows Tesla exaggerates FSD's safety via flawed methodology.
> Crash data analysis shows Tesla exaggerates FSD's safety via flawed methodology.
Frankly I'd be shocked if this weren't true
Indeed.
I was already concerned about this ten years back when I still trusted Musk to be at least trying to do the right thing.
Now that he appears to be firing the bringers of bad news, it can only get worse.