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Comment by loganfrederick | Hacker News Reader

That is where there is a disconnect between the Tesla marketing language and technical language.

They publicly advertise and collect cash for pre-sales of "Full Self Driving". Most Hacker News technologists (a generalization for sure) would reserve a phrase that bold for Levels 4 and 5.

But here they are in writing stating that they are currently only at Level 2.

So a couple core questions around Tesla are:

- Is it acceptable to take pre-orders from the average consumer for a feature that might be 10 years away?

- Is it ethical to use exaggerated marketing speak for specific technical functions (to give a non-Tesla example, this is like when I see companies implementing rule-based decision trees or linear regression and calling their apps "Artificial Intelligence")?

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> this is like when I see companies implementing rule-based decision trees or linear regression and calling their apps "Artificial Intelligence"

AI means so many things that it has become as meaningful as "magic". Some don't consider anything less than human-level an AI (this is also called AGI or strong AI). On the other hand enemy behavior in video games is commonly called "AI" even when it is as simple as pacman ghosts. In the same way that magic can literally mean "impossible" or be applied to card tricks accessible to 5 year olds.

"AI" is ambiguous but "Full Self Driving" has a pretty clear plain meaning. It means that the car is self-driving. Not partially self-driving, not mostly self-driving, fully self-driving.

To the layperson, "full self driving" means "I can ride it drunk without going to jail"

And I think that's the meaning car companies should use in public communications. I get why it's helpful for automotive engineers to talk in more detailed shades of grey, but for the rest of us, a car where I can't prop up my feet and start playing Minecraft is "assisted driving".

But they haven’t financially recognized the full amount paid for FSD as revenue...

They’re basically long-term 0% loans like the Cybertruck deposits. They keep it in escrow and slowly recognize it feature by feature.

This disconnect seems to be growing globally, be it marketing, technical or legal.

It seems strange considering the wide availability of information and communication, but apparently there either is no feedback loop back to the people who write like that, or there is but it's mostly positive (be it more sales, less lawsuits or a greater following). At some point the meaning of those words will have hollowed out so much that we can't use them in normal conversation anymore.

It's not just technical and marketing, it's legal too. And this article references emails from tesla legal team. So legal is telling dmv that it's L2 so it doesn't have to get permits, but that doesn't mean the tech isn't destined to be L3 when it's fully developed and they are ready to submit themselves to regulatory scrutiny.

Your theory here is they're purposefully downplaying their level of self-driving technology to avoid regulatory processes?

Are they going to keep winking at customers and letting them think it's level 3 so they continue to take their hands off the steering wheel and do other things like countless Youtube videos already capture?

It's a little disturbing how people will jump through so mental hoops to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt.

I don't really see that as giving Tesla the benefit of the doubt. I read it as describing what may be a ploy to avoid the regulatory processes and that may be a valid point.

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