'Tesla Is Getting It Done': Elon Musk On Real World AI For Robotaxis

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has tweeted and spoken extensively about the latest self-driving technology developed and deployed by his electric car company, has reiterated and reassured that Tesla's robotaxis will soon be a reality. The beta version of the full self-drive (FSD) was first released in October 2020. The updated FSD V9 was also released only to a limited number of beta testers.  

On Friday, Musk responded to user Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog), who tweeted that there was 90 percent surety that Tesla will pull off robotaxis. "I've done extensive testing and concluded that no fundamental problems remain. It can really be done. I'm positive," the post read. 

Responding to the tweet, Musk said that it should be clear to anyone who has experienced the FSD beta evolution. However, the billionaire entrepreneur once again underscored the "insanely hard problem" of getting the real-world artificial intelligence (AI) right, something he talked about earlier as well. "Self-driving requires solving a major part of real-world AI, so it's an insanely hard problem, but Tesla is getting it done. AI Day will be great," he further said. 

On July 25, another Twitter user @BLKMDL3 expressed excitement about the FSD beta V9 after taking a ride in one of the Tesla cars equipped with the updated software. 

"Thank you, James Locke, for giving me a ride in FSD beta V9. Holy crap it's so good. What a massive improvement over 8.2. Great job, Tesla AP team," the person wrote. 

Musk reacted to this tweet as well, saying the update to FSD Beta V9 will be released on Friday, July 30, at midnight. "Several improvements coming via V9.1 on Friday at midnight," he replied to the original tweet praising Tesla's FSD technology.

It's still unclear if the Tesla users, who are testing the self-driving technology, received the update last night. 

The FSD v9 Beta technology, according to a report by Electrek, is expected to incorporate Tesla Vision, a new computer vision system from Tesla that relies entirely on cameras without readings from the radar sensor. But Musk has admitted on several occasions in the past that it has turned out to be more difficult than he expected. On July 3, for instance, in response to a tweet, Musk said that generalised self-driving was a hard problem, for it required solving a large part of real-world AI. The Tesla CEO added that he didn't expect it to be so hard, but the “difficulty is obvious” in retrospect. “Nothing has more degrees of freedom than reality.”

The Tesla CEO added that he didn't expect it to be so hard, but the “difficulty is obvious” in retrospect. “Nothing has more degrees of freedom than reality.”