this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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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?
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.
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
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.
If Musk said the sky is blue, and you agreed with that on Lemmy, then you'd be downvoted.
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.
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?
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 in developing AI, 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”?
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.
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?
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.
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
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:
Here's the question he was answering:
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.
exactly. if you own a hammer, youre a construction firm, apparently.