As federal regulators reportedly near the completion of their safety investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot system, questions loom over the future of autonomous driving technology under the leadership of Elon Musk.
What Happened: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, has been conducting a multi-year investigation into the safety of Tesla’s driver assistance systems, including the widely recognized Autopilot feature.
This investigation is now reaching its conclusion, with implications that could significantly impact the trajectory of self-driving technology, reported Reuters.
“We’ll get to a resolution (of the Tesla probe),” said acting NHTSA administrator Ann Carlson.
See Also: Elon Musk Says Tesla Close To Completing ‘FSD AI Puzzle’
The investigation was initiated in 2021 after a series of incidents involving Tesla vehicles equipped with driver assistance systems crashing into stationary emergency vehicles.
Despite being marketed as “Autopilot,” “Full Self-Driving,” and “FSD Beta,” these features do not render Tesla cars fully autonomous.
Rather, they require constant human supervision, ready to take control at any moment. The probe aims to ascertain the level of responsibility Tesla bears for these incidents and whether the company provided adequate warnings and instructions to users.
Why It’s Important: Previously, Musk has, time and again, left the impression that Tesla’s vehicles are fully autonomous.
For instance, last month, the tech billionaire responded to former Tesla director of AI and Autopilot Vision, Andrej Karpathy‘s, post about introducing his parents to ChatGPT, an advanced language model from OpenAI, and sharing their astonishment at its existence and functionality, saying, “Same happens with Tesla FSD. I forget that most people on Earth have no idea cars can drive themselves.”
Such statements have raised concerns about users potentially misinterpreting the capabilities of the Autopilot system.
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