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- "Tesla vision AI could really crush these Google 'not a bot' tests lol," Elon Musk tweeted Wednesday.
- He was referring to reCAPTCHA tests, which ask you to identify objects to prove you're a human.
- But hours later, it was reported that Tesla was recalling nearly 363,000 cars over self-driving problems.
Elon Musk said the artificial intelligence in a Tesla could easily pass Google's reCAPTCHA tests – which are designed to filter out robots from humans – hours before reports that nearly 363,000 Teslas could be recalled over potential issues with its self-driving technology.
"Tesla vision AI could really crush these Google 'not a bot' tests lol," Musk tweeted on Wednesday evening.
The world's second-richest person was responding to a Dogecoin fan's joke which included a range of Tesla's vehicles in an edited reCAPTCHA test, captioned: "Cybertruck is a car? or a truck?"
The long-awaited Cybertruck was first revealed in 2019, though production has been delayed to early 2023 – two years later than Musk's predictions.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2023
Google's reCAPTCHA is almost ubiquitous on the internet as a system to prevent spam. The original CAPTCHA — which stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" — involved identifying distorted text. But Google's version can be as simple as clicking a box, or identifying objects.
Musk said that a Tesla couldn't be separated from a person through this, because he believes it could identify any of those objects without a problem.
Less than 24 hours after this tweet, it was widely reported that Tesla was recalling nearly 363,000 cars over problems with its self-driving technology.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said issues with the tech "may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution."
As the recall is taking place through an over-the-air software update, Musk said the word "recall" is "anachronistic and just flat wrong!"
The history of Tesla's AI autopilot feature struggling to identify things while driving is well-documented. Past examples include Tesla's system mistaking the sun and the moon for red and yellow traffic lights.
On Sunday, one campaign group paid for a Super Bowl commercial that showed Tesla's full self-driving mode malfunctioning. The Dawn Project criticized it as "unsafe software" as their footage showed a Tesla swerving towards oncoming traffic; driving on the wrong side of the road; and running over child-sized mannequins.
Musk tweeted in response: "This will greatly increase public awareness that a Tesla can drive itself (supervised for now)."
Last December, CNN reported that Tesla's self-driving mode caused an eight-car pileup in California, injuring nine people.
Tesla and Google did not respond to Insider's request for comment.