About a week ago an update to the Tesla software that was sent over the air (OTA) to its fleet was missing some crucial elements like Autopilot and Advanced Emergency Braking (AEB). While the fix was expected two days later, nothing came through the weekend. As of today, it’s still unclear if the update, also an OTA one, is being rolled out to all vehicles and whether their Autopilot and AEB is up again.
The software update of last week left several Model 3 and other Tesla EV owners a little worried because Autopilot and AEB are critical systems. Autopilot isn’t the same as autonomous capability – yet – but it has some ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) elements that are critical to driver and passenger safety, such as being able to keep within the lane.
The update to the update, which is expected to fix the problem, was promised last week but it hasn’t come. Such software updates are common in the smartphone market, but Tesla is one of the frontrunners in the auto industry. The difference is, a broken update for a car is very different from one that’s meant for a phone.
At the end of August, the entire Tesla network went down for more than a day, and it was a rude reminder that connected cars are part of a perpetually ‘live’ environment that you’ll only miss when it goes down. This software update snafu reminds us that humans still control much of what happens in the world of automation.
We are yet to reach the point of “singularity”, which in AI terminology is the moment where a machine can perform every task that a human can. Right now, whatever AI exists is because of machines learning to be human, and learning requires teaching, and the teachers are mostly human. And whenever there’s a human element involved, there are bound to be errors like this one.
A broken software update is not the end of the world, but it does put Tesla on probation until the process itself is rectified to make sure this sort of thing is an extremely rare incident.
If you’ve received your OTA software update that fixes the earlier, broken one, please let us know in the comments section.
