Calling it the Model X may have been provocation to amateur video stars.
Эрик Стаффорд Опубликовано: 10 мая 2019 г.
- It came to Elon Musk’s attention that the number-one trending video on the world’s number-one pornography portal features a couple getting intimate in a Tesla Model X on Autopilot.
- Musk then tweeted about it, seeming to approve of the idea.
- That’s interesting, in light of controversy (and a pending lawsuit) about whether Autopilot is safe to use when a driver is not fully attentive and able to take the wheel.
Tell new-car buyers “it practically drives itself,” and the consequences could prove mildly entertaining, wildly dangerous, or totally inappropriate. Or, in this case, all three.
Tesla has publicly acknowledged and legally fought many controversies ever since the electric-car company started offering its Autopilot self-driving technology to people who could afford it, and the latest incident demonstrates that some people take “self-driving” literally.
Tesla’s automated Autopilot system caught the attention of 6,242,959 viewers (as of this writing) of a video of the pornographic variety posted to the world’s leading pornographic entertainment website. Without getting into the details, and citing sources familiar with the explicit video, a man and woman engaged in various sex acts while the Tesla Model X was operating on Autopilot. Seventy-four percent of viewers gave the movie a thumbs-up.
In response to the video, currently the most highly searched on the website, embattled Tesla CEO Elon Musk yesterday responded with two tweets. The first, as shown above, read: “Turns out there’s more ways to use Autopilot than we imagined.” The second simply said: “Shoulda seen it coming . . .”
Last month, Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached an agreement that requires his tweets about certain topics to be approved by lawyers before they can be published. So, it’s at least possible that his thinly veiled comments about the erotic Autopilot encounter might have been approved by corporate, which must have been an interesting conversation.
While human error and irresponsibility are to be expected, Tesla explicitly states on its website that Autopilot should only be operated when the driver is fully attentive and ready to take over control at any time. The company also says that currently Autopilot is classified as a Level 2 automated system, which means the technology isn’t fully capable of self-driving.
