A man in Texas did a little experiment while riding in a Tesla Cybercab. At a viewer’s request, he decided to cover the vehicle’s interior camera. He soon found out this was a mistake, as the car ended up pulling over and he talked with an agent, who was described as very AI-like.
The man in question, Jeremy Judkins, shared his Cybercab adventure online. He is a content creator who, as of recently, has focused his attention on Tesla’s electric vehicles. The video attached above garnered 1.4 million views, 79,600 likes, and more than 700 comments in a matter of days.
The man was in the middle of a Cybercab trip in Texas while livestreaming. Suddenly, he noticed a chat request: to place his hand in front of the interior camera, covering it completely. Without hesitation, he did exactly that. Five seconds later, a pop-up message appeared on the screen in front of Jeremy.
“Vehicle is finding a safe location to pull over,” the message read. “The ride can be resumed after the vehicle parks.” Then, on the bottom part of the screen, another message read, “Do not cover camera. If action continues, the vehicle will pull over.” This second message appeared at the same time as the first.
Agent Call, Pulling Over
Jeremy, startled and unable to resume his ride, blamed his audience for the sudden change of plans. He said, “Well, I might as well take down the suction cup cause they’re kicking me out. Getting kicked off on the side of the road.”
Moments later, Jeremy got connected with a support agent. The agent, allegedly a man, said in a very robotic tone, “Hi, this is Tesla robot taxi support.” Jeremy explained what had occurred, and after a brief moment of silence, the agent asked him to repeat himself. He did, and after saying that he was checking in on Jeremy, the agent told him he could resume his ride once the Cybercar successfully pulled over.
A few minutes later, the Cybercar did pull over. Then, the “Resume Ride” button became clickable, and Jeremy’s trip continued.
Reactions
Many viewers were concerned about the vehicle’s privacy or lack thereof. One said, “So someone is watching you??? You can’t have your own privacy.” Another one commented, “It’s a little disturbing that Tesla needs to watch the passengers on the inside to continue the ride.”
Others focused on how the Tesla agent sounded like an AI. One wrote, “You probably talked to Grok.” Another one added, “AI has learned personality to the point now where you don’t know the difference from it being a real person.”
Finally, some even called out Jeremy for how he reacted to the Cybercab pulling over. One said, “Zero accountability.” He responded by saying it was “not that deep.”
