Manisha Krishnan: Yeah, this season has … I mean, this is the first time I’ve watched in 15 years. But this season has been pretty spot on. It’s almost like they’re reading WIRED and satirizing everything. I feel like if Trump and Eric Adams started a talk show, maybe that could be the catacomb.
Zoë Schiffer: I like that.
Manisha Krishnan: Because everyone would find it funny across political lines.
Zoë Schiffer: So maybe South Park will save us after all. Switching gears literally for our next story. Our colleague Aarian Marshall reported that Tesla has been encouraging drowsy drivers to use the full self-driving or FSD mode on their cars. Contrary to its name, this feature does not actually allow cars to drive themselves, it just assists drivers in doing a variety of basic tasks. The manual for the car says that the driver needs to be ready to take over at all times. But drivers are reporting that in-car messages are appearing to tell them to do just the opposite. The messages say things like “Drowsiness detected, stay focused with FSD.” Or, “Lane drift detected, let FSD assist you so that you can stay focused.”
Manisha Krishnan: Yeah, that sounds dangerous. It sounds like they’re kind of like, “Hey, you want to take a nap right now? Let FSD kick in.” No, they should be blasting music, blasting the AC, make it like a spin class in there to wake you up. Tesla has made changes to its technology to make it more difficult for inattentive drivers to use FSD. Back in 2021, the company started using in-car driving monitor cameras to determine where their drivers were sufficiently paying attention while using FSD.
Zoë Schiffer: It seems at odds with their past efforts to build more safety around their self-driving features. This is like a pretty delicate time for Tesla. For years, the company has been accused of making products that can be allegedly defective in certain ways. This past August, a Florida jury found that the company was partly liable for a 2019 crash that killed a 22-year-old woman. The crash occurred when a Tesla model S driver was using an older version of the company’s driver assistant software called Autopilot. At the same time, Elon Musk and the company’s board of directors have put FSD at the center of the automakers strategy. So Musk has promised that the feature will transform into a truly autonomous driving system by the end of the year, although that’s looking unlikely. And Elon Musk is generally known for promising pretty aggressive timelines that then he blows pass again and again. One more before we go to break. WIRED Science reporter, Emily Mullin reported this week that scientists made human eggs from skin cells, and use them to form embryos. This is a huge deal because it could mean a new way to treat infertility for people who want kids. But to be clear, none of the embryos were actually used to try and establish pregnancy. And it’s unlikely that they would’ve developed much further than the womb. But it’s still a really big deal because it could one day be used as an alternative to IVF.