‘Tesla employees shared images made by Tesla cars with each other’

Tesla employees shared images taken by Tesla cars among themselves, for example to joke about them. This happened at least between 2019 and 2022, former employees told Reuters. Tesla collects the images to train its AI.

The ex-employees describe images and videos such as a naked man walking towards a Tesla, collisions and aggressive road users, and lingerie hanging near a charging Tesla as examples of images that were shared among themselves. Another example is a child on a bicycle who is hit by a Tesla. This concerns employees at an American office where employees had to assess the images in order to improve Tesla’s Autopilot, write Reuters.

This department mainly employed young people in their twenties and thirties, where a culture of ‘memes and viral online content prevailed’. The employees shared the images with each other in private and group chats, for example to make jokes. An employee claims that colleagues who did this often were promoted relatively more often.

Tesla managers would take action if such memes were shared in large public channels, but the images were still shared among themselves and in smaller groups. In any case, this happened in the middle of last year; it is not clear if this still happens.

The car manufacturer says it protects privacy when collecting the images, for which drivers must give permission. For example, the images are not linked to the identification number of a car and the owner cannot be traced. However, former employees told Reuters that the location of the images could be traced using a Google Maps function. In addition, some people could be identified or located by what can be seen on the images.

Tesla did not respond to questions from Reuters. Parked Teslas will no longer share images with the company. In addition, Tesla wants to increasingly automate human work, so that fewer people are involved. Yet the company now employs at least 675 people who process such images.