[modeless]

Yes, Elon has been and continues to be inexcusably optimistic on AI timelines. I think it would be reasonable to fine Tesla for false promises on timelines and on stuff like "all cars contain all necessary hardware for FSD". But being wrong about those things doesn't warrant criminal charges. I was completely aware that the timelines were wrong at the time, but I also believed (correctly) that FSD would be available in a testable form eventually and had no problem spending 5% of the purchase price of my car to participate in the future testing.

[ManuelKiessling]

> inexcusably optimistic

I will definitely bookmark this as a nice replacement for "lying".

[modeless]

It's only lying if he doesn't believe it. And he demonstrably does. He has a whole division at Tesla designing a humanoid robot for mass production in the next few years on the assumption that the AI will be ready by then. He keeps removing sensors from their cars on the assumption that AI can replace them in a few months' time. He started a brain implant company with basically no near term market potential because he believes it will be important for interfacing with the upcoming AIs. If he didn't believe his own statements about AI he wouldn't be doing those things. It may be borderline delusional, but that's not the same thing as lying.

Consider that in the past plenty of other people in the industry have underestimated things that he's overestimated, such as the potential for reusable rockets, and the timeline for electric cars becoming viable, and the timeline for low-cost phased array antennas to support Starlink. And those have been incredible success stories for him, despite his initial overestimation, which really was overestimation, that many called stupid at the time, with some justification. And AI may yet turn out that way too. Even if he's wildly optimistic about timelines, he may still end up closer to correct than the conservative establishment in the industry which has a very strong status quo bias, like with disposable rockets and internal combustion engines.

[blaser-waffle]

> It's only lying if he doesn't believe it.

Whether he believes it or not doesn't mean jack. You are still out several thousand dollars for something that doesn't work.

I bet Liz Holmes really truly thought Theranos products were going to work too.

[modeless]

It clearly means something, both from a legal perspective and a moral perspective.

[arcticbull]

Even if both Elon and Holmes believed they were doing the right thing, that doesn't mean they weren't negligent (broadly that they should have known better) or that they didn't cause material harm to those who relied on their representations. This creates both civil and criminal liabilities. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure it does.

[modeless]

I said it means something, not that it absolves them of any responsibility whatsoever. I already said it would make sense to fine Tesla. But the whether they were mistaken or malicious still matters a lot.