Tesla Lays Off Over 200 Autopilot Data-Labelling Employees

Today, Bloomberg reported that Tesla just laid off around 200 data-labelling employees from the Autopilot team and closed a branch in San Mateo, California. This lines up with Tesla's goal to make all autopilot data auto-labelled, and hopefully this shows that significant progress has been made.

This is promising news for FSD's Neural Networks being trained to label data.

Andrej Karpathy, Director of AI at Tesla, stated last year that around Tesla hired 1,500 employees to auto-label data, making this about a 13% cut in employees in that sector.

In addition, this past month, Elon Musk stated that he would cut 10% of salaried jobs at Tesla, while many in the data-labelling team were reported as hourly workers. Regardless, Tesla appears to be making appropriate cuts to make their workforce as efficient as possible.

(Featured Image Courtesy of Tesla, Inc)

Source: Bloomberg, Drive Tesla Canada

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[Leo Doyle]

It's just part of the cost-cutting they need to deal with the China lockdown supply chain disruptions, the slow ramp of the 4680 and associated technology, and resulting effect on ramps of the factories in Austin and Berlin, as well as potential reduction in sales from the recession.

Right now is the time to find the least damaging cuts. Giving they don't even yet have combined stack, and that they're working on auto-labeling, cutting labeling is a reasonable one. They can always use some cheap labeling in Africa or other places to replace them later.

I’m sure that is what is happening, sadly remote working is both a curse and a cure. When your job can be done remotely and it can be done by anyone anywhere. He can place star link in countries with no internet and hire for the lowest minimum wage to cover off jobs like labelling.

 

[martinv]

i have had a model 3 in the UK for three months and there have been three major software updates, the one before last removed most of the self driving benefits (due to EU laws, I thought we had left Europe) and then two days ago it added additional seat belt pre tensioning that might just have saved my life, but at the same time showed up a flaw in auto pilot.
I was sat at 73MPH in a 70 MPH zone, on autopilot in the 'fast lane' with a small car ahead of me that was a the same speed, I was happy enough, the distance from me to them was '1' as set on the RH scroll and all was good
Then a Black Range Rover was tailgating me and flashing for me to move, but there was nothing I could do as the middle lane was slower, so this impatient fool accelerated into a gap in the middle lane and cut into the space in front of me, he caught the front bumper of my car and sent me into the central concrete barriers, I steered ahead but the car was totally unstable and twice more it drove into the concrete, eventually I got control, and teh traffic behind that had seen it all slowed so i could get into accross all four lanes into the left (I am in the UK) but we have no safe stopping zones so I limoped it to the next exit and called the Police etc.
The Range Rover slowed for a while and then sped off and i didnt get his number plate
The result is very little damage to the body worlk apart from the wheels on the drivers side, with the car being so new, I wonder what will happen, is this going to be a massive job?
I spoke with Tesla and they just told me to call a recovery company, not all helpful, luckily my insurance company reovered it and I spent a day in Hospital due to some temporary loss off facial mucle control and a very sore neck.
Lived to tell the tale but suspect that the very low C of G saved me from the common fate in the UK of cars flipping over when side swiped like I was.
Pictures show front a rear wheel on my side and the other pic shows where the Range Rover paint was leff behind where it impacted me.
I do feel tha the lane deviation had somethingto do with me hitting the concrete three times as I could not get it out of that lane without it beeping endlessly.
I had both hands on the wheel at all times.Tesla did not seem interested in the data from the crash but it confirms to me that we are years away from autonomous driving in the UK.
I happen to be a helicopter pilot with FAA and UK CAA licenses and there is way more chance of autonmous flights becoming practical in five years than cars on roads close to major towns.
For my next one, I won't bother with anything other than the built in autopilot as either of the two upgrades are a waste of time and money.

 

[sleepydoc]

i have had a model 3 in the UK for three months and there have been three major software updates, the one before last removed most of the self driving benefits (due to EU laws, I thought we had left Europe) and then two days ago it added additional seat belt pre tensioning that might just have saved my life, but at the same time showed up a flaw in auto pilot.
I was sat at 73MPH in a 70 MPH zone, on autopilot in the 'fast lane' with a small car ahead of me that was a the same speed, I was happy enough, the distance from me to them was '1' as set on the RH scroll and all was good
Then a Black Range Rover was tailgating me and flashing for me to move, but there was nothing I could do as the middle lane was slower, so this impatient fool accelerated into a gap in the middle lane and cut into the space in front of me, he caught the front bumper of my car and sent me into the central concrete barriers, I steered ahead but the car was totally unstable and twice more it drove into the concrete, eventually I got control, and teh traffic behind that had seen it all slowed so i could get into accross all four lanes into the left (I am in the UK) but we have no safe stopping zones so I limoped it to the next exit and called the Police etc.
The Range Rover slowed for a while and then sped off and i didnt get his number plate
The result is very little damage to the body worlk apart from the wheels on the drivers side, with the car being so new, I wonder what will happen, is this going to be a massive job?
I spoke with Tesla and they just told me to call a recovery company, not all helpful, luckily my insurance company reovered it and I spent a day in Hospital due to some temporary loss off facial mucle control and a very sore neck.
Lived to tell the tale but suspect that the very low C of G saved me from the common fate in the UK of cars flipping over when side swiped like I was.
Pictures show front a rear wheel on my side and the other pic shows where the Range Rover paint was leff behind where it impacted me.
I do feel tha the lane deviation had somethingto do with me hitting the concrete three times as I could not get it out of that lane without it beeping endlessly.
I had both hands on the wheel at all times.Tesla did not seem interested in the data from the crash but it confirms to me that we are years away from autonomous driving in the UK.
I happen to be a helicopter pilot with FAA and UK CAA licenses and there is way more chance of autonmous flights becoming practical in five years than cars on roads close to major towns.
For my next one, I won't bother with anything other than the built in autopilot as either of the two upgrades are a waste of time and money.View attachment 835505
View attachment 835498View attachment 835499

Wow - glad you're OK. did the dash cam happen to catch it?