What Tesla Robotaxi Day Can Teach Leo
The Tesla Robotaxi day came and went. According to many of the analysts, it was a flop. Of course, these tend to be automotive people who look at Tesla as a "car company".
Many were pointing to the fact the event was light on details. That is common with these time of product announcement kickoffs. There was a major piece that got overlooked by the ones I saw comment on the event.
It is for this reason that I started to link what is taking place with Tesla to LEO. That is the basis for this article.
What Leo Can Learn From Tesla Robotaxi Day
The big announcement, from my perspective, was not the Robocab. To me, that wasn't something that I was looking forward to. Don't get me wrong, it is fine. The product is likely to be a major success when it does eventually roll out (2026-2027)/
Some were enamored by the RoboVan. That was impressive but again, not for the reason most think. The model at the event was configured for people. That is not where the value of a van is. I think the potential to move cargo is a bigger opportunity. The company can sell the fan as a party bus or as a mode of transportation for the tunnels the Boring Company is making.
Actually, I think this aligns well with the Tesla Semi.
No time period was given on the release so, for the moment, it is on the back burner.
So what was the major piece of information presented at the event.
It was this: Tesla is a full blown autonomy company.
Two autonomous vehicles were present along with showcasing Optimus, the Tesla robot. There were a number of RoboCabs on hand, giving people rides. We also saw a dozen or so robots, engaging with people in the crowd.
In other words, the leap forward from a few years ago with the Tesla bot was someone in a costume to today was huge.
The We, Robot angle is now on the website. The two autonomous vehicle along with Optimus are featured there.
This was the major announcement>
The Lesson For Leo
Obviously, Tesla is not going to stop making cars. As we can see, this is going to be a part of its future. The company is bringing out models that will result in millions of more vehicles sold each year.
That said, this is not the focus. We clearly see how the vehicles feed into what the company is truly about: artificial intelligence.
Every vehicle that hits the street is another gather of data for the company. This is the basis of the future for any company.
It is the major lesson for Leo.
I stated on a number of occasions that social media, as we know it, is dead. This is from the platform owners perspective. Social media is a tool to gather more data. It is no different than each car Tesla puts out. These are simply pathways.
Leo should be an AI platform. That is where the future is. Anything that is focused upon anything else is missing The general trend.
Simply put, disruption is coming in a major way. Any company that is not heavily involved in AI is going to end up as a footnote in history. It simply cannot compete long term.
At the core of this is data. digital platforms are at the core of this. One of the reasons I am hesitant about the future of OpenAi is the fact they do not have the ongoing data flow like X, YouTube, and the Meta apps.
Tesla boldly proclaimed that it is an autonomy, AI company. Obviously, this was in the works as evidenced by the major addition to the Austin factory. Implementing a 100K GPU cluster puts is a realm where only XAI, Meta, and perhaps Google have gone.
Leo needs to do the same thing. The ability to roll out AI features will likely be faster than anything we ever saw before. We see how rapidly the LLMs are moving. Since that is the basis of LeoAI, much of that can be integrated into Leo. On top of that, AI agents can be built utilizing Leo data along with the synthetic that was created from the use of the AI tools.
The potential, once it is started, is to roll out a couple dozen features each quarter. That is how quickly the industry is moving.
Leo needs to be a part of that.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
I have to disagree that the lack of details is common with these type launches. After the Cybertruck, Model 3 and Model Y people were able to immediately preorder and see all the specifications of the vehicles. This is literally the first one I can think of that lacked details and preorders.
Tesla is not a full blown autonomy company. It's well known that the Optimus robots had human controllers at the event last night, and that Tesla has been mapping out the WB studios for weeks for this Cybercab demo. Nothing demo'd last night was actually autonomous.
I also don't think you can call Tesla an autonomy company until its making the majority of its revenue from autonomy. As far as I know Tesla hasn't made any money from autonomy yet.
By this logic, Meta is merely a social media company (actually advertising) since there is where the bulk of their revenues come from. This from the company that has one of the leading LLM platforms and other AI tools rolling out.
Semantics? Maybe. But I disagree with your assessment here.
?Tesla is not a full blown autonomy company. It's well known that the Optimus robots had human controllers at the event last night,
Well known by who? Where is the evidence? By those on shows like CNBC? Actually, I saw a robotics experts, a guy who started and sold two robotics company, who was at the show asked that question and he said he could tell. It is likely some of it was, but not all. The dancing, for example, was not human controlled. That was synchronized showing the bots were doing it on their own and that it was programmed in.
So what? Isnt this what Waymo does for its autonomous division. Did the vehicles drive themselves? Isnt that autonomous?
Ironic that which Waymo gets applauded for, when Tesla does it, they are someone how autonomous.
As for how much of that was due to mapping, that is up to speculation and nobody can say how the software arrived at its conclusions.
I would define Meta as an advertising company rather than an AI company. LLAMA is being developed in service of more accurately targeting customers with advertising. If Meta ends up earning significant revenue from selling LLMs then I'm happy to rethink that assessment.
Optimus being human controlled is well known by people close to Tesla. Adam Jonas from Morgan Stanley wrote about it, Ross Gerber has been discussing it on Twitter, as has MKBHD. Tesla employees told people Optimus were being human operated.
The dancing was totally preprogrammed, but that's not autonomy.
I saw today that Tesla has been mapping out the WB Studios for 3 months, and it looks like there is some credible evidence that the Cybercab doors being opened were all human controlled.
Personally I'm not even sure if Waymo will ultimately be successful, but Waymo vehicles are autonomous because they can navigate the chaotic roads without a driver. The cities they operate it are all mapped, but the autonomy and all their sensors can (so far) deal with all sorts of scenarios. The cybercab demonstration was synchronized and planned, there were no chaotic elements for the autonomy to navigate.
Let's be perfectly honest, $TSLA is overpriced as both auto stock and an AI stock. The cybercab launch was an attempt to distract people from the Model 2 being scrapped, the not good earnings call next week, and the various regulatory cases against Tesla. I am legitimately worried for anyone who holds $TSLA stock right now and would ask people to seriously think about derisking.
You could be right on this. Markets are notorious for being crappy at pricing value. Of course, you could be wrong.
As for your views on autonomy, I think you are mistaken. To claim that Tesla does not have this is incorrect.
Tesla does this. It is supervised meaning someone is the vehicle. However, when engaged the car drives itself. This is not level 5 autonomy but it is autonomous. Of course, Waymo fails the definition too since it does have operator ready to step in.
Hence, Waymo does not run without operators ready to intervene. So what is the difference?
That might be true. There was likely no FSD configured for that as of yet. They just contoured it for the Cybertruck.
Unlike the vehicles with FSD which can operate the vehicle without the human "driving": As for your view of Waymo being autonomous, try to put it in a city that it is not in.
It cant. So you are comparing a prototype geofenced for a demonstration to Waymo's business model. I know you said that you arent sold on them being successful. However, you do use them as the poster child for autonomy it seems.
As for Ross Gerber, that is the guy who kept claiming that Elon diverted the GPUs to XAI over Tesla as a sign he was focused on other things. The guy failed to mention the facility in Austin was under construction.
Just another I hate Elon guy.
The difference is the legal burden.
If a Waymo vehicle causes an accident, then Waymo the company is responsible and accountable for the legal costs of that accident.
This legal burden is why they have lots of cameras, sensors, LiDAR, geofencing, mapping and redundancies built in to limit their exposure to risk.
Supervised FSD puts the legal burden on the driver/owner of the Tesla. Tesla the company isn't legally responsible for any accidents or mishaps on the road involving Tesla vehicles. Tesla vehicles don't have LiDAR, sensors and redundancies built in for safety to limit their legal burden. Supervised FSD Critical Interventions are still way too high for Tesla to assume this risk.
I think I would be way more confident in saying that Tesla has solved autonomy once they're confident in their own product enough to assume the legal burden. This risk would be absolutely massive considering the 2M+ Tesla vehicles out on the roads.
This article is also very nice. As for TESLA, I would also focus more on what it is doing for the future rather than what it is showing to our eyes. What our eyes see of TESLA is not what TESLA is actually doing. TESLA is doing much more. TESLA is preparing a future that others do not see yet. As for the InLeo platform I will not say anything, I do not know the situation well and I trust what you say
I watched the Tesla thing Live last night on X. I thought it was pretty cool.
The thing that got me thinking was when Elon said people could be a "Shepherd" and buy a "flock" of these robotaxis which could then earn them money from autonomous ride shares as well as renting compute when the cars are idle.
Could someone go on hive-engine (or VSC?) and make a ROBOTAXI token, then buy robotaxis with the proceeds and give a dividend and/or do a token buyback with the car's earnings? The taxi could take HBD as ride payments. Might be good publicity for Hive if nothing else.
Source: Screenshot from https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1YqJDkbjazvGV with text added in MS Paint by me.
I haven't thought it through much. Might have obvious flaws.
But that's where I am now in my thought process on this.
Probably won't work with hive-engine due to no smart contracts, but VSC will have them. But might take a while for them to actually roll out on VSC?
It IS possible to make custom smart contracts on hive-engine.
This is on their FAQ:
Can I publish my own smart contract to the Hive Engine sidechain?
We are currently not allowing arbitrary smart contracts to be published to the sidechain, as you can do on platforms like Ethereum or EOS. Our goal is to be able to allow this at some point in the future, but for now if you are interested in deploying a custom smart contract please contact us on Discord and we can work with you on that.
Source: https://hive-engine.com/faq
That's all I got now. Feedback please? Trash it if it's a bad idea. :)
It was cool I agree. To me, the message was much bigger than people think.
As for your idea, I stated it for years. It is a completely possible process. Do not worry about HE, the token can be created on VSC. The vehicle wont be ready for 2-3 years.
The idea is valid except the the HBD aspect. Payments are dictated by Tesla. However, the payouts of the token share could be HBD. What you are starting is the future. Tokenization of new ideas, people get involved, and, if they work, it could expand out.
To take your idea further, there could be a token for each taxi (or group). You could have one in Houston.Tx for example, and then have another token relating to a taxi in Los Angeles.
Yes, artificial intelligence is the future and any company that ignores this category is a loser in the future. I enjoy the ideas with all the differences of opinion I have with how to deal with technologies in companies. Tesla is really moving forward. It provides creative ideas and helps progress. Maybe in the field of technology and how to present initiatives, it can be an example for others, but not in everything. We must also consider the functions. As artificial intelligence can be an opportunity for us to live better, it can also become a dangerous challenge. The challenge begins when we do not follow the basic principles of dealing with new technologies or interpret the principles according to our own ideas.🤔
It is fascinating to watch. People need to really dive into this or risk getting left behind. It is crucial for each person to realize how important #ai truly is.
For Leo, the lesson is clear, AI is the future. Just as Tesla is using its cars as data-gathering tools for its AI systems, platforms like Leo should be leveraging their data for AI growth. If Leo wants to stay relevant, focusing on AI development and data integration is essential. The potential for rapid advancement in AI is enormous, and platforms that invest in it now will likely dominate in the years to come.