A research experiment reveals that tricking Tesla’s autopilot into wrong speed is not that difficult and may require only a two centimeter tape. The research was conducted by Hackers at McAfee Advanced Research who changed 35 mph speed sign to 85 mph sign making Tesla’s autopilot to up vehicle’s speed upto 50 mph.
Thing Was Probably Wrong with Tesla’s Camera
The issue was not actually with Tesla’s autopilot but with camera that couldn’t read the accurate speed sign. Researchers had used a two centimerters tape to change 3 into 8. Publications that reported this research suggest that human eye couldn’t have made this mistake that has led Tesla’s autopilot to increase car’s speed.
Since the news is taking rounds on social media some users believe that experiment was conducted on Tesla’s older model S that uses MobiEye. The newer models don’t have speed camera recognition feature as they don’t have patent for it.
People are also coming in defence of the new models by arguing that new Tesla models read the speed signs through maps and GPS speed limits.
Still Not A Time for Company to Launch Self-Driving Cars
Autopilot features in vehicles are not a new phenomenon. Many companies offer cars with these attributes to merely assist the drivers, which is indeed helpful. But, relying on such features which are in preliminary stages to bring driver less cars in market doesn’t seem possible in near futures. Companies like Uber that experimented with driverless cars have already called back this vehicles due to increased road accidents.
The recent experiment by hackers even if it is about some old Tesla model and merely about a simple autopilot feature shows that there are a lot of areas car menufacturers like Tesla need to work on before launching their driverless and fully autonomous cars. Maybe, there is a need to incorporate more advanced level of artificial intelligence in vehicles systems.
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