Elon Musk: Tesla Autopilot | Lex Fridman Podcast #18

Lex Fridman talks with Elon Musk about the past, present, and future of Tesla Autopilot. Musk argues autonomy will make non-autonomous cars nearly obsolete and that a Tesla bought today is an appreciating asset because its hardware is already capable of full self-driving, with capability arriving via over-the-air software updates. They debate camera-based driver monitoring, with Musk contending that once the system is dramatically safer than a human, human intervention could actually decrease safety, using elevator operators as an analogy. The conversation closes on adversarial attacks against neural nets, the gap to artificial general intelligence, AI and love, and simulation theory.

• Tesla has roughly half a million cars on the road with the full sensor suite, which Musk claims is about 99% of all such driving data.
  00:08:29
• Tesla's new full self-driving computer can process an order of magnitude more than the NVIDIA system, and you swap it by unplugging NVIDIA and plugging in Tesla.
  00:08:48
• Musk states the hardware currently being produced is already capable of full self-driving, with the rest being a software problem delivered over the air.
  00:14:25
• Musk's claim that buying a Tesla today is buying an appreciating asset, not a depreciating one.
  00:15:26
• Musk predicts that possibly by end of year or next year, having a human intervene will actually decrease safety.
  00:22:22
• Musk says the rate of improvement of the self-driving system is exponential.
  00:24:28
• Musk claims defending against adversarial attacks is easy: train the net on what is definitely not a car and exclude matrix-hack-like inputs.
  00:27:03

• The conversation happened after Fridman's MIT group released a paper on driver functional vigilance during Tesla Autopilot use, and the Tesla team reached out offering the podcast.
  00:00:00
• Fridman states Tesla never financially supported his research, and he has never owned a Tesla vehicle or Tesla stock.
  00:01:01
• The FSD computer is two redundant systems on a chip, likened to a twin-engine commercial aircraft that can operate safely on one.
  00:09:00
• Tesla treats all driver input as error: if a user had to take over, something signaled a problem to learn from.
  00:11:12
• Musk suggests Autopilot may need to be 200 to 300 percent safer than a person for regulators to allow unmonitored driving.
  00:18:40
• Musk notes there are about 40,000 automotive deaths per year in the US, yet four in a Tesla would get a thousand times more press.
  00:19:44
• Fridman's team annotated about 18,900 Autopilot disengagements and found drivers maintained functional vigilance, against vigilance-literature predictions.
  00:20:46
• Musk's physics view of love: if an AI loves you in a way you cannot test as fake, then it is real.
  00:30:47
• If Musk could ask an AGI one question, it would be: What's outside the simulation?
  00:32:23

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.