First person to hack an iPhone says he's built a self-driving car in ONE MONTH, but Elon Musk slams the claim as 'inaccurate'
- The claim was made by George Hotz, a 26 year-old from New Jersey
- He says his technology will be far superior to the MobilEye used by Tesla
- Claims he retrofitted a Acura ILX to create a self-driving car in one month
- Tesla says it is 'extremely unlikely' that a single person would be able to
The first person to hack Apple's iPhone has made what he claims to be his most audacious hack yet; creating a self-driving car in just one month.
George Hotz, a 26 year-old from New Jersey, claims his technology will be far superior to the MobilEye system used in the Tesla Model S autonomous car.
But Tesla is not impressed. The company says that Hotz' claims are wildly inaccurate and there is no way a single person can achieve such a feat in that time frame.
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The first person to hack Apple's iPhone has made what he claims to be his most audacious hack yet; creating a self-driving car in just one month. George Hotz, a 26 year-old from New Jersey, claims his technology will be far superior to the MobilEye system used in the Tesla Model S autonomous car. He's pictured here at 17
In the new issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, Hotz talks to Ashlee Vance about his DIY project arguing that breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are what made it possible.
Hotz claims to have bought a 2016 Acura ILX and retrofitted it with components to make it into a self-driving car.
These included using a smartphone camera modules, a laser-based radar (LIDAR) system sensor, a computer and joystick controls to turn it into a self-driving car.
He believe he can challenge Mobileye, the Israeli company that supplies Tesla with their current driver-assist technology.
'It's absurd,' Hotz says of Mobileye to Vance. 'They're a company that's behind the times, and they have not caught up.'
Hotz says the major advance for self-driving cars is the edge that deep-learning techniques provide in autonomous technology.
Tesla is not impressed with George Holz' claims. The company, and its CEO Elon Musk, says that Hotz' claims are wildly inaccurate and there is no way a single person can achieve such a feat in that time frame
He claim the usual practice has been to manually code rules that handle specific situations.
Hotz's car has no such built-in rules. It learns what drivers typically do in various situations and then tries to mimic and perfect that behaviour.
He's building a kit consisting of six cameras - similar to the $13 ones found in smartphones - that would be placed around the car, according to a Bloomberg report.
Two would go inside near the rear-view mirror, one in the back, two on the sides to cover blind spots, and a fisheye camera up top.
He trains the software for the cameras using what's known as a neural net and eventually wants to sell them for $1,000 each.
According to Bloomberg, Hotz says he'll release a YouTube video a few months showing how his Acura beats a Tesla Model S on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles.
Hotz broke off the talks with Elon Musk about working for him: 'I appreciate the offer, but like I've said, I'm not looking for a job. I'll ping you when I crush Mobileye.'
Musk simply answered, 'OK.' But Musk has since hit back at Hotz' claims.
'The article by Ashlee Vance did not correctly represent Tesla or MobilEye,' Telsa said in a statement.
Tesla said this is the true problem of autonomy. Getting a machine learning system to be 99 per cent correct is relatively easy, but getting it to be 99.9999 per cent correct, which is where it ultimately needs to be, is vastly more difficult. Pictured is Tesla CEO Elon Musk
It added that it is 'extremely unlikely' that a single person would be able to produce an autonomous driving system that can be deployed to production vehicles.
'It may work as a limited demo on a known stretch of road - Tesla had such a system two years ago - but then requires enormous resources to debug over millions of miles of widely differing roads,' it said.
Tesla said this is the true problem of autonomy.
Getting a machine learning system to be 99 per cent correct is relatively easy, but getting it to be 99.9999 per cent correct, which is where it ultimately needs to be, is vastly more difficult.
'We should also clarify that Tesla's autopilot system was designed and developed in-house.
'Were this simply a matter of repackaging a vendor's technology, as claimed in the article, we would not be unique in offering this ground-breaking experience in production vehicles.
'If other car companies could meet or exceed the Tesla product by buying an off-the-shelf solution, they would do so.'
Tesla Autopilot includes radar, ultrasonics, GPS, cameras and real-time connectivity to Tesla servers for fleet learning.
Going forward, the company says it will continue to use the most advanced component technologies, such as MobilEye's vision chip, in its vehicles.
Hotz claims to have bought a 2016 Acura ILX (pictured) and retrofitted it with components to make it into a self-driving car. These included using a smartphone camera modules, a laser-based radar (LIDAR) system sensor, a computer and joystick controls to turn it into a self-driving car
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