As Elon Musk vouches for self-driving technology in his electric cars, a former Tesla employee has reportedly said the electric car-maker’s self-driving tech powered by AI is not safe to be used on public roads.
In an interview with the BBC, Lukasz Krupski said his attempts to highlight his concerns around self-driving technology internally “had been ignored”.
Krupski said he was concerned about how AI was being used to power Tesla’s autopilot service.
Its autopilot feature, for example, includes assisted steering and parking – but, despite its name, it does still require someone in the driver’s seat with their hands on the wheel.
“I don’t think the hardware is ready and the software is ready,” he was quoted as saying.
“It affects all of us because we are essentially experiments on public roads. So even if you don’t have a Tesla, your children still walk on the footpath,” Krupski added.
Tesla did not comment on the report.
According to Musk, “Tesla has by far the best real-world AI”.
Krupski reportedly found evidence in company data which suggested that requirements relating to the “safe operation of vehicles that had a certain level of autonomous or assistive-driving technology had not been followed”.
According to Tesla’s own data, US customers using Autopilot averaged one crash where the airbag deployed roughly every 5 million miles travelled in 2022.
The US Department of Justice is also investigating Tesla over its claims relating to its assisted driving features.
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