Musk intensifies AI campaign amid scrutiny on Tesla's driver assistance features

Elon Musk has increased Tesla’s focus on artificial intelligence after going through intense scrutiny for its driver assistance features.

During an event, AI Day, in Palo Alto, California, Musk announced that Tesla would build a robot in a human form that could perform repetitive tasks, using some of the technology used by Tesla for its vehicles. The Tesla CEO said that the prototype was likely to be ready by next year.

While talking about the need for such robots, Musk highlighted that their deployment could fundamentally change the economy, potentially alleviating labor shortages. “In the future, physical work will be a choice,” he said, adding that long-term, such a robot could make it necessary to provide a universal basic income, or a stipend to people without strings attached.

Earlier this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) identified 11 crashes in which Tesla cars “have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes” since January 2018, which caused 17 injuries and one death.

The NHTSA said that out of 11 crashes, four crashes were from 2021, and had opened a preliminary evaluation of Autopilot in 2014-2021 Tesla Models Y, X, S, and 3.

On Wednesday, two U.S. senators wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to open an investigation against Tesla, saying it had misled consumers and endangered the public by advertising its drivers’ assistance systems as fully self-driving.

Even though Tesla hasn’t formally addressed the complaints, it has long said that Autopilot makes driving safer. Musk said on Twitter in April, “Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than an average vehicle.”

Meanwhile, the new Tesla Bot will be roughly 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing 125 pounds, and able to lift 150 pounds. Musk assured that the robot was “intended to be friendly of course and navigate through a world built for humans”. Humans would be able to outrun it, he added.

(With inputs from Wall Street Journal)

Picture Credits: The Verge