Elon Musk of Tesla has been very vocal in his condemnation of artificial intelligence. He is entitled to that. However, the Autopilot feature of Tesla cars “learns” (some have said “calibrated”) to the road conditions in the first few moments of use.
Isn’t his hollow reprimand of AI use a bit hypocritical?
Is it “ok for me, but not ok for you”? Is he relying on the Silicon Valley “hubris” to validate his company’s use of AI? The Autopilot technology is certainly not to the foolproof stage, and tagging the functionality as “beta” is a cop-out that turns consumers who pay $50K+ for the cars a bunch of disposable test monkeys.
The “hubris” here is you don’t roll out a feature until it is 99.99% good to go AND you value human life.
I want Tesla to succeed. But, this ever-present arrogance as exhibited by Tesla’s avoidance of blame in the most recent Mountain View crash is appalling.
AI may not be the problem. God-like hubris may be.
Do better Elon. Don’t stop dreaming, just do better.
Consummate Dilettante 