Tesla is a reference when it comes to self-driving cars, and practically everyone knows that. And the confidence in the work developed there is such that Elon Musk, CEO of the company, made a prediction that can be considered, at the very least, bold.
According to the billionaire, Tesla’s next step towards 100% autonomous driving will be so big that it will make the car, in addition to driving itself, have a greater competence than if it were being driven by a human.
“I will be shocked if we don’t achieve safer-than-human full autonomous driving later this year. I’ll be shocked,” the executive said before confirming that Tesla’s focus will be almost entirely on the development of fully autonomous driving. This partly explains the recently confirmed postponement of the Tesla Cybertruck’s start of production.
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According to Musk, the 100% autonomous driving system “will soon become Tesla’s most important source of profitability”, as “it’s a very good thing from a financial point of view”.
Experts hit back at Musk
Despite almost blind confidence that it will make their cars drive better than humans, Musk still faces some resistance. This is the case of Phillip Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who also works in the sector.
According to him, without a human driver to act safely in certain situations, it will be difficult to guarantee the safety of a fully autonomous vehicle, “as machine learning has not yet been taught”.
Raj Rajkumar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the same university where Koopman works, reinforced his colleague’s chorus and also preferred to be cautious about Musk’s optimism.
“In repetitive and dangerous tasks, using a humanoid robot is the wrong strategy,” he said, referring to the executive’s idea of using sentient machines to transport items from one factory to another.
Regardless of whether you’re right, or what will be effectively implemented — 100% autonomous cars or humanoid drivers — the fact is that enforcement in the United States over Tesla, which has already been quite strict, will become even more fundamental to prevent the increase in the number of accidents.
