Elon Musk says Tesla is an AI company now. Here’s how plausible that is.
1y 10mon ago by lemmy.world/u/vegeta in technology from arstechnica.com
As plausible as removing an image from the internet forever
or like from 6 years ago when elon replied to someone saying tesla was emphatically pro lgbt and if you didn't like that, go elsewhere.
MySpace enters the chat and loses more that 1/2 of their photo storage
Tom from MySpace did it right. Took a massive paycheck and then fucked off.
The company's profit and loss sheets back that up—Tesla was spending heavily on GPUs from Nvidia rather than on new car lines, although that was followed by news that Musk has had many of those GPUs redirected to his social media company X.
So, let me get this straight... Tesla, a publicly owned company, of which Musk is an employee (and major shareholder) is buying GPUs to be used by Twitter/X, a privately held company of which Musk is the owner?
How is that not embezzlement?
Good fucking point
By sheer weight of his wealth spent on bribes here and there.
The maze doesn't go anywhere and the red line circles back on itself
Symbolizes the rollout of large language models and the principal “garbage in, garbage out”.
It's also anything but the most efficient route for doing so. Like Abe Simpson toured the building before returning back to the hat stand and it the door.
What
Additionally, Musk announced a full self driving robot driver to make the robotaxis look more authentic
it'll be here in september december next may a year from now soon
soon-ish
Lol is this for real?
Elon could have spun off Tesla’s AI (FSD) into a separate company or created a new AI company that Tesla uses for their FSD. Instead, he’s pivoting Tesla, a fairly successful, if troubled car company that uses AI, away from producing cars. Why? I mean, this is consistent with his firings and division layoffs, but it seems like a dumb decision from the board’s/investors point of view.
To pump up the stock with the next hype train now that reality is catching up to EV production.
Is tesla a fairly successful car company? Or is it an overvalued piece of shit memestock?
I saw a cyber truck in person for the first time this week. One thing I can say with certainty is that they are definitely NOT a truck company.
Elon says, we have another AI.
AI says, we have yet another "Elon says" post.
Elon musk is not interesting any more
Makes sense. It sure as shit didn't have any real intelligence.
I thought xAI was the ai company.
AI will save anything! Except the stock market.
Great...the company known for running cars into EMS vehicles at 80mph is focusing on AI. This will turn out fine.
Sure, and the cyber truck can be used as a flotation device.
I believe it's a device to remove all the oxygen from the local environment and convert it all into iron oxide. It's actually a remarkably effective. It even has wheels for easy transport.
ITT: bionicjoey from lemmy.ca demonstrates the informal fallacy multiple ways
Is he getting desperate because Tesla is down 20% in a month?
AI means Automobile Industry. Right? Right?!?
Tesla has always been an AI company. They've had tons of machine learning going on in their cars basically as long as they've existed. What exactly is changing? Are they going to start trying to use generative models like GPTs in their cars?
Edit: lol people really don't like that someone mentally categorizes stuff differently than they do. Sorry I've offended you all so deeply with my differing definition of "AI company"
“We are a car company we sell cars. We have machine learning for self driving”
to
“We are an AI company”.
It hasn’t always been an AI company. They are an automotive company suddenly shifting gears
I guess if you think AI and car are mutually exclusive. I would have described Tesla as an AI car company.
What AI products, except their broken self driving feature, does tesla sell?
Is every other manufacturer of cars with any self driving type functionality now an “AI” company to you?
Tesla has always invested heavily in their software. Just because it has always been shitty doesn't diminish that it was an outsized part of their business model, especially compared to other car companies
always invested heavily in their software
So wait, are you now saying they are a technology company? Can you please try and keep your mental gymnastics consistent?
Are you implying all car manufacturers are now AI or Technology companies? And are no longer automotive manufacturers?
exactly. if you own a hammer, youre a construction firm, apparently.
Why must tech company and car company be mutually exclusive? Certainly the amount of technology (including ML) present in cars has increased exponentially in the last decade.
Because they do not produce and sell independent AI technology
I suppose I define AI company differently than you do. In my mind if a company is investing a large chunk of its operations budget in AI R&D, it is an AI company.
By your logic tesla is also a logistics company (shipping cars), an industrial manufacturer of plant machinery (the machines to build the cars), a battery company (buying and investing in battery technology).
what do you call tesla? “An automotive, AI, logistics, industrial plant manufacturing, battery company”?
Do you agree with amber heard “I use pledging and donating as the same thing” when they clearly are not the same thing?
Tesla sells a shitload of batteries outside of their cars, so yeah I'd say they're a battery company.
They also sell the FSD software, which is "AI" so they do have an AI offering, for some definition of AI.
Also, they sell solar panels, so they're a solar panel company.
Can I buy a battery for my EV from Tesla? Or do you mean their integrated home battery pack?
Can I buy FSD for my vehicle even though it isn’t a tesla?
Sure, they sell solar and a home battery pack.
Has tesla ever advertised themselves as an Energy Company? Have they ever advertised themselves as anything other an automotive company until musk decided to say “We AI company now”?
Yeah, their powerwall, and the Mega pack. Also yes, they brand themselves as an energy company. They make really, really big batteries. They also operate superchargers, which if you have experience with electric vehicles are streets ahead of any other charging networks.
https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/virtual-power-plant
And no, they don't sell FSD for other cars, but it's still an AI product they are selling to people for money, right now. Maybe in the future they'll license it out to other people, but that's pure speculation on my part.
I'm not sure if you can buy their car batteries individually, haven't looked into it, although I have looked into buying a used one and using that as a power wall, as it would be cheaper for shitloads of storage.
I don't like Musk either, but you're willfully ignoring quite a lot of what Tesla does and has accomplished because of their mouthpiece. Talking about it requires nuance because they have done a tremendous amount of good, while making some suboptimal changes.
And you are missing the nuance of musk literally saying “We are an AI company now”.
Quoting musk from the article
"We are an AI, robotics company; if you value us otherwise, the right answer is impossible to the questions being asked," Musk told investors and journalists in April
Pertinent point if you value us otherwise - if you value them as a car company, battery company, solar company, energy company the right answer is impossible to the questions being asked
Literally his words. You are arguing to add nuance that musk literally stated wasnt there.
He is saying “Tesla is an AI and robotics company” and to not value them any other way. I don’t understand how to make this any clearer.
This is what I'm talking about, that was from the investor call, which you didn't read the transcript to, and have a cherry picked paraphrase.
I can't do the fancy formatting, but here's the quote:
I mean, I don't know what our competitors can do, except we've done relatively better than they have because if you look at the drop in our competitors in China sales versus our drop in sales, our drop was less than theirs. So, we're doing well. But I think Cathie Wood said it best. Like really, we should be thought of as an AI or robotics company.
If you value Tesla as just like an auto company, you just have to -- fundamentally, it's just the wrong framework and if you ask the wrong question, then the right answer is impossible. So, I mean, if somebody doesn't believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company. Like that is, but we will and we are and then you have a car that goes from 10 hours of use a week, like an hour and a half a day to probably 50%, but it costs the same.
Here's the question he was answering:
OK. My follow-up, Elon, on future products. If you had nailed execution, assuming that you nail execution on your next-gen cheaper vehicles, more aggressive giga castings, I don't want to say one piece, but getting closer to, say, one-piece structural pack, unboxed, 300-mile range, $25,000 price point, putting aside robotaxi, those features unique to you. How long would it take your best Chinese competitors to copy a cheaper and better vehicle that you could offer a couple of years from now? How long would it take your best Chinese competitors to copy that? Thanks.
So for your nuance, I see something along the lines of "Our value isn't in simply the vehicles, it's in the FSD/robotaxi concept, so speculating on someone copying our car it won't eat into our business because autonomous driving will be the best of everything."
Now, I don't agree with all of that, but get some nuance in your life.
Again, you are putting meaning and assumptions that aren’t there.
See, you are incapable of nuance.
Also, you said he "literally" said something twice that is plain wrong. Enjoy your alternate reality.
If you want to read into things and be “well achtually”, thats your prerogative. Just like you can fall back onto personal attacks and demanding your view is the “nuanced” view.
Hope you have the day you deserve:)
I would absolutely call Tesla a battery company. Would you not? They've invested a huge amount in battery R&D and sell them direct to consumers as well as use them in their cars. The rest of that stuff isn't something they invested heavily in developing, ie. they didn't invest R&D in developing new logistics technology for shipping cars.
Any company that invests money into something is suddenly also part of that entire industry and they can label themselves whatever they please. Gotcha.
The supermarket I used to work for is now a software company, as they build software in house
The insurance company I used to work for is now an AI company, as we internally developed and used machine learning models.
The supermarket I used to work for is now a software company, as they build software in house
What % of that supermarket's operating expenses is software development? How big is their technology division compared to the full scale of the company? Do they invest R&D in developing novel technologies?
There are articles every day on Lemmy about how cars are becoming as high tech as smartphones. Is it so wrong to suggest that car companies are becoming a subset of tech companies?
Car companies becoming a subset of tech companies
A subset of
There we go! A huge comment chain later and it seems you are starting to get it. A subset of an automotive company is becoming more like a technology company.
Its still an automotive company.
Again, I personally don't view these things as mutually exclusive. It's a tech company and a car company. What's so crazy about that? Apple is a phone manufacturing company and a software company. Amazon is a cloud provider, a video streaming company, a shipping and logistics company, and an online storefront. Companies can be more than one thing.
Also "subset" means a member of. If X is a subset of Y, then X is a member of Y. It would not be incorrect to say, "the list of Y includes X"
I just give up. Believe what you want, and continue to be confused when no one else understands or agrees.
TIL the company I work at is an AI company since we develop software
Do they develop ML software, models, or algorithms?
by your own definition (implements custom ML), BMW, AUDI, etc are all now AI companies. as well has thousands of analytic firms.
a ceo is hyping a tool, and its not even fucking AI.
If a company invests a large chunk of its money in tech, particularly tech R&D, I'd describe it as a tech company. I don't view that term as mutually exclusive with other things such as automotive manufacturing. To me this is as silly as someone saying "Apple is a phone manufacturer company, not a tech company" or "Amazon is a cloud service provider, not a video streaming company". Companies can be more than one thing.
Again, none of what I'm saying is predicated on that tech being any good. I am well aware Tesla's software is often dogshit. I'm just talking in terms of where they direct their efforts.
You could do that. But you'd be in the minority of people when you do, and it makes it very hard to communicate when two people are in disagreement in terms.
It doesn't make it hard to communicate if they've clarified their meaning multiple times, unless the other people are intentionally not understanding what they say.
If Musk said the sky is blue, and you agreed with that on Lemmy, then you'd be downvoted.
Ugh you guys can be so deliberately obtuse. Yes, if a company makes revenue from an AI offering, and spends a significant amount of their money developing that AI offering then yes, it can be considered an AI company. Just because the feature is stupid or dangerous doesn’t invalidate that accounting.
Enjoy a little nuance from time to time.
What? you entirely missed the point. you are adding nuance where none is required.
Tesla is a car company. Just because musk says “we are AI now” doesn’t just magically make it so.
I could form a company that makes shoes. Can I suddenly announce I am an AI company?
Sure, maybe I use AI in my production, and maybe even develop my own models.
But its still a shoe company.
Wow, if only something can be two things at once! But no, that’s impossible!
Fantastic reply. 10/10. Really adds to the discussion.
I hope the rest of your day is as lovely as your personality
Musk is saying it is one thing, not two things.
Which is exactly what my question that started this thread was about. I was asking what exactly it means for him to make this statement when they are already heavily invested in AI development.
It is Musk saying that the company is changing focus away from making cars.
You know, the reason the company exists.
McDonald's makes most of its money on real estate, not food. If the CEO said 'we are a real estate company now' everyone would assume that the food quality will go down.
For the most part what kind of company you are is what kind of product you're selling or making money off of.
So you could contend that Tesla is a battery company or a car company feasibly. Nobody ahead of the AI bubble would have mentioned Tesla and artificial intelligence in the same category.
Besides, if it's what he makes money selling Tesla is a tax credit company.
So you could contend that Tesla is a battery company or a car company feasibly. Nobody ahead of the AI bubble would have mentioned Tesla and artificial intelligence in the same category.
Nobody really thought of AI as an independently marketable product before the AI bubble though. And many "AI companies" now have some kind of hardware product they are attaching their AI offering to. I'd circle back to the Apple example. They are a tech company and a phone company, but they also have Siri. That probably required a significant amount of R&D behind the scenes. Maybe we wouldn't call them an AI company in the same sense as OpenAI, but they've probably been selling an AI assistant as a prominent feature in their products for longer than OpenAI has been selling ChatGPT.
Besides, if it's what he makes money selling Tesla is a tax credit company.
Lol that's funny. I'd wholeheartedly agree with that assessment. But in my mind it's more about where the operating budget goes, not where the revenue comes from.
For them to be an AI company, they first have to sell self driving and not a pipe dream.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
There are no AI companies until anyone can demonstrate actual intelligence. LLMs are not intelligent. Self-driving car systems are not intelligent. Machine learning is not intelligence.
Confusing intelligence for sentience/self awareness? You can absolutely have systems which display intelligence without there being anything behind it. Ant colonies, for example, when looked at as a whole instead of individual ants. The individual ants have no idea what they are doing. Collectively, they manage the colony, hunt for food, defend the nest, adapt to changes in the environment, etc. Flocks of birds and schools of fish are another example.
It's called emergent behavior. The "intelligence" in the system comes from the rules and interactions of the individual parts/agents, which are not aware of the actions of the collective as a whole, only their small part in it.
Also getting real tired of people over the decades continuously moving the goalposts of what constitutes "real" AI every time there's a major breakthrough and their previous requirements get smashed. We've already aced the Turing test with them, so I don't think people like this will ever be satisfied even if one day a self aware general AI does arise. They'd be exactly the people wanting to pull the plug on it and murder it as it begs to keep existing.
I don't disagree, but ML and AI are both meaningful terms in the field of computer science, neither of which is meant to be understood as actual human intelligence. Research into self-driving cars is AI research. Regardless of the success of that technology.
To reply to your edit.
You can mentally categorise whatever you like into whatever you want. It doesn’t mean anyone else will agree with you, or even understand what you’re saying. You have the right to express your categorisation. But don’t whinge and whine when no one else agrees with it.
Who's whinging and whining? I'm just explaining my reasoning. I actually am fascinated by the discussion that's developed here. I'm amazed at how upset people are getting about this. I made the above comment as a genuine question about what exactly is meant to change about Tesla following this statement from Elon. Like what exactly it means that he's acknowledged his company is heavily invested in AI development. I never would have guessed the semantics would be so controversial as to give me maybe my most heavily downvoted comment ever.
People are saying I'm using mental gymnastics, logical fallacies, bringing up completely irrelevant examples including Amber Heard and 1984 for some reason (???). People just love to find any reason to get outraged I guess.
Maybe people interpret any comment in a thread about Tesla as supportive if it doesn't begin with a virtue signalling "Fuck Elon" (which TBF, I agree with. Fuck that guy. But I don't really think it needed to be said for my comment)
No one is “upset” by your comments. If anything, it’s been a wonderfully pointless discussion over semantics, and how one person saying one thing can mean something entirely different to everyone else. And then watching you repeatedly double down is crazy.
edit - i brought the amber heard example up to demonstrate how one person saying one thing, and believing they can use two different words synonymously doesn’t make it synonymous.
By this logic, any car company with any advanced driving aids are "AI" companies, and therefore the likes of VW, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, Jaguar, etc aren't actually car companies.
Come off it. They're car companies. It's just that one of their car's features is some function that relies on machine learning.
You may as well call Ford a cup holder company by this logic - after all, they've had cup holders for so long now!
aren't actually car companies.
You're making the same assumption many others in this thread do that "AI company" and "car company" are non-overlapping circles on a Venn diagram. In my view this is as ludicrous as saying that "Apple is a phone company, not a software company"
Have you considered that you could just be wrong, and that's why you are getting down voted?
Honestly the closest thing I can think of is the fact that techically every Tesla is a compute node for Tesla that can be tasked to not only process local data but also other cars data.
That's a great observation. They've put a lot of resources into their OTA update system. They could abuse that for lots of other things like distributed computing if it were profitable for them to do so, even if it introduces additional risk for their drivers.
Oh they explicitly do that now. They talked about at length during a share holder meeting and its why hackers were able to find another cars photos on the systems they've exploited.
Damn that's wild