Tesla continues to bet on autonomous driving, even if it is not fully autonomous, you know, it is almost autonomous. Precisely because of this and in response to the insistence on changing the name of its autonomous driving system, they have accepted that the future is still arriving, that they need people to keep testing and moving forward, and that is why they have decided to recruit factory and sales employees to turn them into human operators for the Robotaxi. Yes, real people, sitting inside the car and supervising what the software does while the Full Self Driving (FSD) system is active. The dream of not driving a car is still alive, even if for now it needs an adult watching.
A technology that is still learning
The role of these new workers is simple, they have to get into the car in the driver’s seat and wait for FSD to do its job. They observe and correct if necessary, but they also have to collect data on what happens.
Tesla calls them AI operators, very futuristic by the way, a mix of driver, supervisor, and technological guinea pig. If the car hesitates, fails, or behaves in a strange way, they are there to intervene.
More hours, more pay
To attract volunteers, Tesla is offering these extra hours with fairly good pay to plant and logistics employees. There are also incentives for recommending other coworkers to sign up, so it is clear that they need people and they need them now. The Robotaxi rollout requires many human eyes watching the software while it learns to move in a world that is as real as it is chaotic.
California, the most delicate testing ground
The staffing boost comes just as the service is seriously moving forward in the San Francisco Bay Area. There, Tesla launched its transport app in August, although clarifying that it is not an autonomous robotaxi as such, it works as a ride service with a driver.
As of today, Tesla has about 1,655 vehicles registered and around 800 active drivers in this program. Even so, some users have reported waits of up to 40 minutes during peak hours.
Robotaxi?
Here it is worth lowering the hype a bit. Even though it is called Robotaxi, we should remember that Tesla cannot transport passengers without a driver in California because it does not have permission to do so. So for now, the service is more like an Uber with technological nuances, but with a human at the wheel.
And in other states?
Where regulations are more flexible, Tesla is already replicating the model in states like Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. In cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, or Austin, sales employees have become operators. In Austin, for example, the human sits in the passenger seat as a safety operator while the car drives.
Still jumping with a safety net
Musk once again assured that the service in Austin will be fully autonomous before the end of the year, but Musk, you have less than a week left, are you sure? Maybe this is another one of those promises that do not get fulfilled.
It is not ready yet
And we have to be realistic, autonomous driving is not autonomous yet. It still needs a couple more spins in the microwave. It needs miles and hundreds of real situations that allow errors to be corrected to make it at least as safe as a human behind the wheel. And it is not bad that they are learning, safety has to come before technology.
So what is an AI operator?
Well, a symbol of this technological transition. This job did not exist five years ago, and probably not even two years ago. But it is simple, people who have a driver’s license and specific training in FSD. And it is not badly paid, between 25 and 30 dollars an hour, with a lot of flexibility and much more responsibility. Just like you train ChatGPT, these workers will train AI, but on wheels.