Tesla: Elon Musk never made autopilot promises. They were deep fakes.
“A Model S and Model X can already drive autonomously, safer than a human,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in 2016. Those statements are recorded, but Tesla denies Musk ever made them.
Tesla is on trial. The American manufacturer was sued by the family of Walter Huang, who died in 2018 after his Model X crashed into a concrete barrier. At this point the autopilot system was engaged.
Autopilot will not make Tesla self-drive
Autopilot is a collection of semi-autonomous driving assistants that operate at level 2. This means that the car can perform certain actions on its own under certain circumstances, but there must always be a driver who is on the lookout and able to intervene.
So a Tesla on autopilot is definitely not a self-driving car, despite what Elon Musk likes to say. There is much criticism of the system’s name, which would suggest much more than Autopilot can deliver.
Video by Elon Musk from June 2016
Walter Huang’s family blames Autopilot for his death and has taken Tesla to court. According to Tesla, Huang was playing a game on his phone at the time of the accident and was ignoring warnings from the car.
The family’s lawyers cite a video of Elon Musk from June 2016, in which he says: “A Model S and Model X can already drive autonomously with it, safer than a human being.”
A deep fake of Musk said it?
A California judge now wants Musk to be heard under oath. Tesla is against it. Musk doesn’t recall ever making those statements is the defense.
“Like many public figures [Elon Musk] Victim of deepfake videos and audio recordings allegedly saying or doing things he never said or did,” the company said.
In other words, Musk never made these statements, although footage of them exists. They were deepfakes. In other words, image and sound fragments generated by artificial intelligence.
Deepfake allegations ridiculous
According to the judge, Tesla’s deeply bogus allegations are ridiculous. She demands a three-hour interrogation in which Musk is asked about his statements.
“The position of [Tesla] “Because Musk is famous and a potential victim of deepfakes, we shouldn’t take any of his public statements seriously,” the judge wrote.
She calls Tesla’s arguments extremely disturbing. “That would mean that Musk and other celebrities can always distance themselves from what they actually did and said.”