Tesla's self-driving bias: Musk and influencers get priority in autonomous driving AI development

Steve Granitz/FilmMagic; iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI

Tesla's self-driving cars seem like a marvel of machine learning. But in reality, the company relies on a small army of human "data annotators" who continuously improve how the cars drive by reviewing camera footage from thousands of Tesla drivers and teaching the vehicle how to behave like a human driver, like deciding when it's appropriate to use a blinker or identifying a construction cone.