Just the other day, Tesla finally pushed an over-the-air update that contained a bit of software known as Actually Smart Summon (ASS). For those unfamiliar with the significance of the acronym, ASS is also a slang term for buttocks, a human body part defined by the gluteus maximus muscle, and also the area surrounding the anus, the primary evacuation orifice for solid wastes. The ass is also laden with a vast array of cultural and socio-sexual implications, and as such is an ideal acronym for a bit of limited-automated automobile driving software. Once, there was even a car called the ASS.
But that’s not really what’s important here; what’s important is what ASS actually does, and why the way it has been demonstrated, and endorsed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is so troubling. The software is designed to allow a Tesla to navigate independently for short distances, driverless, so the car can, say, go from a parking spot to a nearby location to pick up the driver, who presumably doesn’t want to go out in the rain or walk across a parking lot or be seen in public or whatever.
This was supposed to come out about two years ago, at least according to Elon:
Note, Autopilot/AI team is also working on Optimus and (actually smart) summon/autopark, which have end of month deadlines
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2022
[Ed Note: Jason, author of a critically acclaimed book on self-driving, is serious about pointing out Tesla’s erroneous self-driving claims. In fact, here are some titles of articles he’s written over the years about them:
- Is Tesla Miscounting Crashes To Make Autopilot Seem Safer? New Study Suggests It Might Be
- Elon Musk Promises You Can Pay For ‘Full Self-Driving’ Subscription In 2021 Even Though It Won’t Really Exist Then
- Again With This Completely Self-Driving Shit from Elon Musk
- Elon Musk Didn’t Realize How Hard Self-Driving Would Be Which Is Why He Should Read This Paper
The truth is, Tesla’s driver-assist tech has limitations that should preclude it from being called “Full Self Driving (FSD),” and the world shouldn’t forget that. You know, for safety reasons. -DT].Â
End of month, 24 months, who’s counting? It’s fine! We all put things off. And this was hardly a mission-critical thing, it’s just a cool little perk. But it’s here now, and it’s already being tested out by people, including laser-focused Tesla fanperson WholeMarsCatalog, who posted this video clip of ASS in action:
My first time sitting in the back seat while FSD drives me around in my new Model 3 Performance $TSLA pic.twitter.com/OM9qnntpj8
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) September 3, 2024
It’s worth noting that this clip was also reposted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk himself:
So, what’s going on here, and why am I making a big thing out of it? The tweet, using the term “FSD,” implies that the car can drive you around, which is technically true but only if by “around” you mean “in super limited areas at low speeds, and also who knows how safe it really is.” What’s happening in the video is not going down on public roads, but in what appears to be a parking lot at LAX, at night, during a time of low traffic. I personally am still a bit surprised these summon features have been allowed to be used even in private parking lots, because what you’re effectively doing is playing with a 4,000 pound RC car in a public space, surrounded by other people.
I’m not alone in wondering about this; the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) brings up a lot of good questions and there are certainly plenty of examples of a summoned Tesla getting into trouble while self-driving under Smart Summon.
But again, that’s not what bothers me; what bothers me is how the poster of the video is sitting in the back seat of the Tesla, watching an episode of Arrested Development, while the car is driving to wherever he set it to drive to on the app.
This bothers me because it’s sending a very false and potentially dangerous message about the capabilities of Tesla’s automated driving assist systems, none of which are truly autonomous. Sure, Smart Summon or ASS or whatever may sort of qualify as Level 4, in a very limited area, but the actual, on-road systems offered by Tesla, Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving,” are both Level 2 systems that require constant driver monitoring, despite what their names might lead you to believe.
So, at best, what WholeMarsCatalog is doing here is pretending. But this kind of pretending can be dangerous, because it adds to the already confusing status of what Tesla’s driver assist systems are actually capable of.
Studies have shown that people are already extremely confused about the capabilities of Level 2 systems, and even worse than that, some people are just idiots. Remember this clown?
That jackass was apparently endangering countless people pretending he had a fully self-driving car, which, I assure you, he did not. How did he get the idea that his Tesla could drive around without any supervision or input from a human? A lot of complex mixed and confusing messages coming from, well, pretty much everywhere in the Tesla communities.
So, when Omar (the guy behind WholeMarsCatalog) decides to hole up in the back seat of his new Model 3 Performance and post a video of the car driving him around while he watches the inimitable Liza Minelli be fantastic, saying
“My first time sitting in the back seat while FSD drives me around in my new Model 3 Performance”
… I think that’s a problem, because it lacks context. He’s seemingly willfully conflating what he is using – the Actual Smart Summon feature, only for short distances in places like parking lots – with FSD, which is an actual, on-road tool. He almost certainly knows the difference, of course, and wants people to at least pretend along with him that it’s FSD, which it very much is not.
Ideally, FSD (again, a specific term for a different stack of Tesla software that is NOT being used here) should not allow this to happen. It should have driver monitoring systems that prevent the car from driving without a human in the driver’s seat. ASS does not have such requirements, so Omar can pull this dippy little stunt.
Why do people do this? Can’t people just pretend they have technologies that don’t exist yet, but keep it to themselves? I mean, I pretend I’m flying a spaceship or in a co-dependent relationship with a robot all the time, but I don’t post it on Twitter and try to confuse everyone into playing along with me.
Also, let’s not forget, Elon Musk himself retweeted this, and he’s already had to deal with plenty of issues coming from the misleading names of these systems. You’d think he’d want to avoid anything like this, completely!
Stupid; this all just stupid. No Tesla is fully self-driving, and no matter how cool you think it looks (it doesn’t btw) don’t get in the back seat of an otherwise empty Tesla that you’ve somehow fooled into half-driving your ass around.
Ugh.
Elon Musk Predicts Level 4 Or 5 Full Self-Driving ‘Later This Year’ For the Tenth Year In A Row
Tesla Using Full Self-Driving Beta Runs A Stop Sign In The Middle Of A Debate About FSD Beta
California Threatens To Suspend New Tesla Sales Over Misleading Autopilot Claims
If that guy was a jackass, does that make Omar an ASSclown?
ASS…. Elon is such a 12 year old
Bet you wouldn’t call him out on the very maturely named website, X
As near as I can tell “X” is barely PG13 anymore. He should have named it Infinite X if he wanted to really raise some cockles.
To be fair, 4chan and 8chan were taken SOOO .. Xchan? No, that autocorrects to exchange… X! He could have purchased 4chan for about 10k though, saved a bunch over turning Twitter into a copy of it.
Tesla FSD is just K.I.T.T. driving drunk.
Tight Rider.
ASS is an appropriate name for these people.
This is ASSuredly a situation where Tesla Corp. is legally responsible for any mishap. We need NHSA to clarify that.
Our ancestors use to like run down wild animals to the death, didn’t have a grocery store or nothing. Just out in the wilderness with your dudes engaging Mammoths in a game of lets run till someone dies. Now, we’re just going to plow though your friends, family and loved ones like bowling pins outside a Whole Foods. Because we’re too addicted to those Jason Bateman dreamy eyes and internet fame to even be bothered with a 100 feet walk to our cars. God Herself probably is looking down saying “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Did God buy a Tesla, too?
Still on the waitlist for a Cybertruck. You really got to know a guy for one those things.
It’s tough , too, when the main guy plays for the other team.
In addition to “Full Self Driving” and “Autopilot”, let us not forget the Bioweapon Defense Mode.
Yoda; ASS, so much sucks this.
When ASS is activated, shit happens
Oh joy, another Hatfields vs. McCoys comment section today! lol.
That said, I did see the post yesterday and thought to myself how it didn’t seem all that safe, how easy and probable that those who vehemently hate Elon/Tesla (for whatever set of reasons) will probably start putting nails beneath the tires when no one is looking, and that a parking lot with 10 of these going at the same time would be a fucking nightmare.
Can we please just launch Mr Krabs to Mars now? Just send him and his most loyal cultists up there today and let their genius figure out how to make it work when they get there.
I’m seriously tired of technological breakthroughs being hobbled by the “some people are too stupid for this” argument.
What about technological breakdowns?
When will somebody step in and stop automakers (especially this one) from testing “autonymous” systems on public streets? There have been enough crashes that should not have happened. More focus needs to be put on distracted drivers, not software that can make it seem like a car can “drive itself.”
Yet another emission from the orifice commonly referred to as Musk.
Really looking forward to Tesla combining ASS with its new Wait In Parking Environment mode. We won’t ever need valets again!
Just wait until we get Level 6 Being Intoxicated Deems Everyone Terrific mode. It will be so refreshing!
It’s in a parking lot where sometimes things aren’t signed as well, and I suppose this software just goes to where the user tells it to, but did anyone else notice the last aisle it turns down it is going the wrong way? Those are angled spots.
I am 99.9% certain that was an issue with the original recipe summon as well.
Someone at work once tried to write a test script that acronymed to FART. It was a useful test and actually needed, butt for some reason it wasn’t approved.
Hopefully coming up with a new name didn’t leave everyone behind on the project.
It eventually got pushed out as a dry husk of its former self.
I heard the employees were really flushed about it.
They could have cleaned up with a high bid, eh?
I’ll be honest, I didn’t read the byline. And then, after the first paragraph, it wasn’t necessary.
I jumped down here from the topshot.
“This is stupid!”
“Why do people do this?”
It’s how Omar makes money. He’s got a huge captive market of Musk Simps who watch his every video. Helps when the CEO re-posts your stuff, too. If he can help convince people FSD is real, it boosts the stock price, making him more.
And heck, Musk is paying him directly via Xitter monetization. Give this dude time and he’ll be hawking supplements or craptocurrency.
Editors note on this article: needs more ass!!
Does anyone see a similarity between the bullshit from Elon the Musk and number
45, (again)?
“It’s not a lie if you believe it Jerry.” George Costanza.
America. Such a fucking mess….
This is just the playbook for authoritarians at this point. It’s not really exclusive to Trump or Elon anymore…although I do think a lot of it started with Trump in 2015/16. Before then there was kind of an unspoken code of conduct with politicians/power brokers that they were expected to exhibit a certain amount of professionalism and even if they had bad intentions they couldn’t say the quiet parts out loud.
Then the disease that is the MAGA movement took hold. Trump was constantly saying/doing repulsive things out in the open and basically half the country decided it was acceptable at worst and that they really liked it at best. Add in all of chaotic rage posting/terminally online weirdo behavior, mix in dictatorial aspirations/traditional strong macho man bullshit, and there you have it.
There’s now an unfortunate amount of it globally. A lot of European countries have spawned what are essentially their own MAGA copycat movements, it’s taken hold in South America and Eastern Europe where strongman authoritarians have always been welcomed, etc. As a result hundreds of millions of people decided to just outright reject reality, substitute their own, and unite over the patently absurd idea that things were better 50-70 years ago and that we need to return to that regardless of cost.
Things were objectively way worse, but when some angry, faux tough, charismatic white dude gets in front of a camera and screams that he hates the same people you do, a lot of people listen. They’re stupid people, but as the old adage goes think about the average person and then think about the fact that 50% of people are dumber than that. For a lot of people facts don’t matter, vibes do.
It’s the internet live without the tubes.
Social media played a front and center role as well. You don’t have to be a wise voice to get a platform anymore, now you just have to be the loudest.
Change a few adjectives here, and this applies to 100% of America. It’s not new.
Well put.
I encourage Jason Stanley’s “10 Tactics of Fascism” it’s on the your tube.
Most applicable here are:
#2 Propaganda, which isn’t just lying, it’s worse, it’s manipulating facts or glossing over details to make a narrative fit.
#4 Unreality, fascists ignore troublesome details and define truth as what the leader says.
#6 Victimhood, fascists tend to claim they’re victimized by others and X,Y and Z is needed to “right the wrong”.
Of course MAGA applies all 10, especially #1 the mythic past, literally m.a.g.a..
Gee, they also fit the Dems to a tee. All 3 examples. Crime, economy, censorship. Odd how politics work…
Oh that’s funny
Dick Cheney refused to divest, profited madly from an elective war, stole a nuclear warhead…. It’s not as new and fresh as we like to pretend.
Well, somebody has made a huge mistake, and this time it isn’t Gob.
I never liked Gob…
I never liked George Michael. Even at my worst I was never that annoying.
I have pop pop in the attic
Who?
Her?
What is she funny or something?
Egg?
Ann Paul Veal (not pictured)
The fact that you call it that shows me you’re not ready.
At least you don’t have gangey, that sounds bad.
Elons needed a PR team and his Twitter access vetted for a while, to me this is the nail in the coffin. Co-signing dangerous behavior is a great way to get sued.
When it runs over someone’s kid in a parking lot it’s going to be worse (or better depending on your opinion) than sued.
Elon’s history suggests he actually wants to constantly be involved in lawsuits.
“…the primary evacuation orifice for solid wastes.” Speaking only for myself here- it is in fact the only evacuation orifice for solid wastes. Again, maybe just me.
Have you never thrown up? It’s not a pleasant orifice to use for the expulsion of solids, and maybe you could argue that the contents of your stomach are not waste per se, but anything that I throw up is not going to be reused, so I count it.
Some people, such as the tweeters exhibited in this article, also use said orifice for speaking.
…And there’s the regurgitating joke of the day!
It was a reference to them talking out of their ass!
Man, nobody gets me around here.
I know what you mean. Like, fissure.
I read it as “re-tweeting is reposting the shit-talking of others,” but I see what you mean and yours is better. Internet jokes are hard! I hope you’ll keep ’em coming.
(I was actually circling back to a different comment I’d made.)
Sometimes I get pretty chunky boogers that count as solid.
It’s really an amazing orifice. It handles solids, liquids and gasses, sometimes all three in unison!
Is Elon posting something ignorant on Twitter even news anymore? This is basically an hourly occurrence….
I try to ignore his antics so I’m not in the know. But has he ever encouraged someone to do something like this before? I’m not a lawyer but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone tries this and ends up suing Tesla because of this.
The Tesla/billionaire litigation industrial complex will keep consequences far, far away.
We’re careful how we cover that, because we don’t want our site to just look like “ELONHATER.com,” but this is a topic JT is passionate about, it’s real, so it’s worth noting every now and again so people don’t think Teslas can drive themselves.
Not only this DT, but people die when they do stupid shit.
But maybe culling the herd is now called for?
The problem is that those who get hurt are often not the ones doing the stupid shit.
Be a treat if a fanboi ran over the orifice while using the ass from the backseat.
You owe me a sip of beer. The part where it came out my nose is on me. Shirt and lap.
My pleasure, the phrase was just laying there waiting to be used.
Of course, and I’ll never say no to Torch going off about stuff he’s passionate about. I was more making a general statement about Elon.
Jason has always been professional when writing about autonomous driving. I don’t care if people love or hate Elon, but what I never want to read about is WHY they feel that way.