Why is Tesla sharing camera data?

[Snuffysasa]

In the Tesla update, it now asks the users to accept "data sharing"

“In order for these features to work, Tesla measures the road segment data of all participating vehicles but in a way that does not identify you or your car, and may share that with partners that contribute similar data to help us provide the service. At no point is any personally identifiable information collected or shared during the process.”

The part I am curios about is sharing the data with partners. I am real curios what that means!


possibility A: Tesla plans on selling the training data to other machine learning, AI, autonomous vehicle companies to get some extra profit.... seems unlikely

possibility B: Tesla plans to participate in mobileye R.E.M... seems odd since Telsa and Mobileye broke up. also I do not know if it i technically possible, to use data for mobile REM that was not collected from mobileye chips..

possibility C: Any other ideas?

 

[wesley888]

They are just thinking ahead when other companies working with them, then both Tesla and their fleet can share the data. Another business opportunity as well. Licensing their Vision software and comes with the global fleet data, but their fleet has to do the same sharing back to Tesla. Win-win situation for them.

 

[croman]

It's legal requirement. They might send that data across servers owned by Amazon or someone else. They might have a third party data processor. It's there to give Tesla flexibility. Without that disclosure they'd be hamstrung in a modern data gathering world.

 

[cdub]

They are just thinking ahead when other companies working with them, then both Tesla and their fleet can share the data. Another business opportunity as well. Licensing their Vision software and comes with the global fleet data, but their fleet has to do the same sharing back to Tesla. Win-win situation for them.

No I don't think so. It think it's so they can train the cars to recognize even more signs and signals.

 

[Snuffysasa]

They are just thinking ahead when other companies working with them, then both Tesla and their fleet can share the data. Another business opportunity as well. Licensing their Vision software and comes with the global fleet data, but their fleet has to do the same sharing back to Tesla. Win-win situation for them.

""and may share that with partners that contribute similar data to help us provide the service.""

this part here confuses me, may share data with partners that contribute similar data

what could this mean??

 

[cdub]

""and may share that with partners that contribute similar data to help us provide the service.""

this part here confuses me, may share data with partners that contribute similar data

what could this mean??

Mapping companies. Signage data resources.

 

[Snuffysasa]

Mapping companies. Signage data resources.

I am not sure what you mean?

 

[timk225]

Who do you think could be receiving the camera data? Easy. FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.

It's the funniest thing for the 3 letter agencies. How to get their spy cameras into every facet of our lives? SELL them to us in high tech cars, and we fully know they are there! What a goof on the American public!

 

[cdub]

I am not sure what you mean?

I'm sure Tesla has partnered with mapping and other companies to assist their self driving. They want to be able to share the data anonymously with them so they can analyze the data. I'm guessing but what else could it possibly mean.

 

[cdub]

Who do you think could be receiving the camera data? Easy. FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.

It's the funniest thing for the 3 letter agencies. How to get their spy cameras into every facet of our lives? SELL them to us in high tech cars, and we fully know they are there! What a goof on the American public!

Tin foil hat time!

The data's all completely anonymous and you can opt out if you're worried.

 

[Snuffysasa]

I'm sure Tesla has partnered with mapping and other companies to assist their self driving. They want to be able to share the data anonymously with them so they can analyze the data. I'm guessing but what else could it possibly mean.

But if Tesla was building their own maps, why would they need to partner with a mapping company?

Are you refering to a company like TomTom or HERE that makes maps for autonomous driving? If Tesla was partnering with them, why would they need to make their own maps.?

 

[aaelghat]

I'm sure Tesla has partnered with mapping and other companies to assist their self driving. They want to be able to share the data anonymously with them so they can analyze the data. I'm guessing but what else could it possibly mean.

I would agree with this. Mapping company supplies Tesla with data including (for example) the curvature of a road. Tesla supplies mapping company with data on (for example) prevalence of lane markings, discrepencies in vehicle coordinates vs. mapping coordinates, etc. Mapping company supplements their database and provides Tesla with more comprehensive data back.

 

[cdub]

But if Tesla was building their own maps, why would they need to partner with a mapping company?

Are you refering to a company like TomTom or HERE that makes maps for autonomous driving? If Tesla was partnering with them, why would they need to make their own maps.?

I have no idea. Maybe it's not a mapping company. Maybe it's a company that provides a database of street signs around the world and their meanings. I'm spitballing. I know nothing.

 

[Snuffysasa]

I would agree with this. Mapping company supplies Tesla with data including (for example) the curvature of a road. Tesla supplies mapping company with data on (for example) prevalence of lane markings, discrepencies in vehicle coordinates vs. mapping coordinates, etc. Mapping company supplements their database and provides Tesla with more comprehensive data back.

like what kind of mapping company?

 

[aaelghat]

like what kind of mapping company?

If you think about it, even though Tesla is building out their own supplemental database, Tesla has to rely on third-party geo-spatial companies for worldwide maps, otherwise Autopilot and navigation would only know about the small fraction of roads that Tesla's have ridden on. You don't want either function to constantly run into unknown territory. Some of the players in the industry are Garmin, Navmil, Sygic, TeleNav, etc. I don't know who exactly Tesla has partnered with.

Here is an article that has a visual of a standard navigation map, vs. one supplemented by AutoPilot data.

 

[lunitiks]

Am I the only one thinking that it's obviously NVIDIA they're sharing the data with?

 

[boofagle]

Who do you think could be receiving the camera data? Easy. FBI, CIA, NSA, e

A warrant would bypass this regardless.

 

[anonim1979]

Am I the only one thinking that it's obviously NVIDIA they're sharing the data with?

They only bought Nvidia's hardware.
The 2016 Self Driving demo aside (that one, IMHO, was running Nvidia's software for "stunt" purposes), Tesla is developing their own software "Tesla Vision" that they will be able to run on their own chips (as there will be a CPU upgrade for all AP2 cars no doubt when they will know how much power their FSD will need).

All new Teslas are equipped with NVIDIA’s new Drive PX 2 AI platform for self-driving

When talking about ‘Tesla Vision’ in a press call with journalists on Wednesday, Musk said:

This is a Tesla‑developed neural net. Although it’s somewhat hardware independent, it can be ‑‑ we can actually run this on Nvidia, AMD or Intel. We did pick the Nvidia (...) as the main chip for the neural net. But it was pretty tight call between particularly between AMD and Nvidia. But ultimately we felt that Nvidia had the better hardware.

"Tesla to make its own custom SoC (System on Chip) for self-driving cars built by Samsung":
Tesla to make its own custom SoC (System on Chip) for self-driving cars built by Samsung, report says

That way they will own everything, and I don't think they will want to help their competitors (as Nvidia would sell their software to anyone).

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I can see in a few years Tesla sending their data through SpaceX satellites (worldwide coverage) with real-time data sharing between vehicles.
And if you have 4500+ of them in the LEO you could also use them for cars' positioning - potential precision could be in millimetres and put all GPS/Glonas/whatever to shame!

 

[timk225]

Tin foil hat time!

The data's all completely anonymous and you can opt out if you're worried.

Do you really believe that pressing the "No sharing data" button REALLY turns off the data sharing, as opposed to just making an icon on the screen change so you think it is off? Computers and programmers can do that.

I might put tape over my Teslas' cameras when I get it.

 

[DriverOne]

like what kind of mapping company?

Well... my guess is the mapping company that supplies the map shown on your car's screen. That's Google.

It's possible, for example, that Tesla gets a discount on Google's mapping service if they contribute back.