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Elevate your hand when you’re sick of studying about Elon Musk. The remainder of you, flip to a latest version of The New York Times Magazine, put together a grande latte — perhaps two — and cool down to soak up greater than 7,000 phrases making an attempt to elucidate what makes Musk tick.
Lawsuits, accidents, deaths and near-misses collide on this provocative, overachieving dissertation that may take a look at the persistence of all however essentially the most confirmed Musk-o-stans.
It’s value repeating the story’s first paragraph to know the story’s premise and clear one’s head for what follows:
“Early on, the software program had the regrettable behavior of hitting police cruisers. Nobody knew why, although Tesla’s engineers had some good guesses: Stationary objects and flashing lights appeared to trick the A.I. (synthetic intelligence). The automotive could be driving alongside usually, the pc effectively in management, and abruptly it might veer to the precise or left and — smash — a minimum of 10 instances in simply over three years.”
Within the subsequent paragraph, this: “… these crashes would possibly seem to be an issue. However to Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief government, they offered a possibility.”
Heartless? Egocentric? Genius? Take your choose to explain the character of Mr. Musk, one of many duties of creator Christopher Cox in “Elon Musk’s Urge for food for Destruction” (thanks, Weapons N’ Roses). His take is instructed by means of the lenses of two Tesla drivers who crashed whereas utilizing the automobiles’ self-driving methods, and thru interviews with attorneys and a Musk affiliate (however unsurprisingly, no interview with Musk himself).
Cox particulars a experience with proprietor David Alford of Fresno, California, who had posted a video displaying his 2020 Model 3 in full self-driving mode approaching a purple gentle, however the automotive doesn’t cease. As an alternative, Cox writes, “It rolls into the intersection, the place it’s on observe to collide with oncoming site visitors, till Alford takes over.” This regardless of the Tesla operating the newest A.I. software program replace. Cox, driving within the automotive with Alford driving, describes an method to a different intersection with Autopilot in command:
“The Tesla began creeping out, attempting to get a clearer take a look at the automobiles coming from our left. It inched ahead, inched ahead, till as soon as once more we had been totally within the lane of site visitors. There was nothing stopping the Tesla from accelerating and finishing the flip, however as a substitute it simply sat there. On the similar time, a tricked-out Honda Accord sped towards us, about three seconds away from hitting the driver-side door. Alford rapidly took over and punched the accelerator, and we escaped safely.”
The Occasions takes pains to chronicle the great, the dangerous and the ugly about Musk, his unrepentant protection of autonomous driving, his mission to ship us to Mars, his questionable persona. “Musk is solely a narcissist,” the creator writes, “and each reckless swerve he makes is supposed solely to attract the world’s consideration.”
Then there’s a poignant glimpse of the person, the place Musk sends his condolences to the daddy of a son who died after his Tesla crashed whereas speeding. However on this lengthy, lengthy story, Musk even right here can’t resist his protection of a better calling: “I need to make it possible for we get this proper. Most good for many variety of individuals.” A revealing comment of many within the story.
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