Connect with us

News

Elon Musk talks AI at 10th annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony

Credit: Music & Medicine | YouTube

Published

on

Elon Musk appeared at last night’s Breakthrough Prize ceremony, held in Los Angeles, briefly discussing artificial intelligence (AI) during his red carpet walk.

The 10th annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, often called the “Oscars of Science,” was held Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on Saturday night, including Musk and a number of other celebrities from the sciences and Hollywood.

During his appearance on the red carpet, Musk was asked by one YouTuber what the greatest breakthrough he hoped for during our lifetime would be. Unsurprisingly, Musk noted that making life multiplanetary was one, while the continued development of AI was another.

While he warned once again that it was possible that AI could eventually kill us all, he also reiterated recent statements that he believes we’ll have AI smarter than any one human by the end of next year, adding the importance of training AI to be as truthful as possible. He notes that this is crucial, even if that truth is unpopular, and he says he’s hopeful that AI will eventually foster humanity, rather than destruction, through this approach.

He also gave the example of Galileo, saying that AI at his time would also believe that the sun revolved around the Earth, since that was what most (not Galileo) believed at the time. Musk went on to note that AI must both know the truth and be able to say the truth, even if it was unpopular.

You can see this under-two-minute interview with Musk below, courtesy of the YouTube channel Music & Medicine.

Advertisement
-

In another interview, Musk also joked to Variety reporters that we could see an AI win the presidency by 2032, after laughing off a question about who would win the U.S. Presidential election this year.

The event included a number of presenters, including Robert Downey Jr., Kim Kardashian, Regina King, Brie Larson, Rob Lowe, Alicia Keys, Venus Williams, Michelle Yeoh, and others, still. The board for the Breakthrough ceremony is also made up of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, entrepreneur Yuri Milner, 23andMe Founder and co-founder of Breakthrough, Anna Wojcicki, and board chair Huda Yahya Zoghbi.

It also handed out awards in four separate categories, the winners of which can be seen below:

Advertisement
-
  • Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics
    • Simon Brendle (contributions to geometry)
  • Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
    • John Cardy and Alexander Zamolodchikov (contributions to statistical physics, quantum field theory)
  • New Horizons in Physics Prize
    • Michael Johnson and Alexandru Lupsasca (contributions to black hole photon ring studies, and detection experiments)
    • Mikhail Ivanov, Oliver Philcox and Marko Simonović (contributions to large-scale universe structure and new galaxy survey tools)
    • Laura M. Pérez, Paola Pinilla, Nienke van der Marel and Til Birnstiel (contributions to dust trap predictions, modeling and discovery)
  • Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
    • Carl H. June and Michael Sadelain (contributions to immunotherapy development)
    • Sabine Hadida, Paul Negulescu and Fredrick Van Goor (contributions to transformative drug combinations for those with cystic fibrosis)
    • Thomas Gasser, Ellen Sidransky and Andrew Singleton (discovery of risk genes for Parkinson’s disease)

The full Breakthrough Ceremony video will be released on YouTube on April 21, and you can watch it here.

Tesla increasing compensation for AI team: Elon Musk

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send your tips to us at tips@teslarati.com.

Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Advertisement
Comments

Lifestyle

Watch Tesla’s “guardian angel” FSD feature take over for collision evasion

Published

on

By

Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.

Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”

The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.


The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.

Advertisement
-

Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.

Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15

Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.

Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla Roadster event gets delayed due to unfavorable weather

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla is delaying its event for the Roadster, moving it from this Thursday, October 1, to Thursday, October 15, due to unfavorable weather.

The company has said it has been tracking the weather for this Thursday closely with local meteorologists, and because the event can only be held outside, Tesla is making the call to delay it:

“We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule. New date is October 15. Additional details to follow.”

We are sure that this is bringing back PTSD for some Tesla fans, and we know it is not ideal, but this also reveals some things about the event. Tesla said that this can only be held outdoors, meaning it bodes well for the rumors that the vehicle could potentially hover.

Some believe that this was essentially confirmed by the FAA airspace restriction they were granted, but this could have been for a drone show or to keep drones from spying on the event.

Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold

The Roadster event has been long-awaited, and it is unfortunate that the weather is going to keep us all waiting a little bit longer.

The Tesla Roadster will be unveiled in Waco, Texas.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest

Starship reached orbit despite losing an engine, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on Flight 14.

Published

on

By

SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday, and for a few nail-biting minutes it looked like it wouldn’t. During ascent on Flight 14, one of Ship 41’s six Raptor engines shut down early, and SpaceX’s livestream host Dan Huot told viewers the team had decided not to commit to orbit. Minutes later, after what Huot described as a lot of conversation in the control room, the final poll came back in favor, and a roughly 19 second burn of a single Raptor pushed the ship into orbit about 170 miles up.

The reversal matters because SpaceX had written the exit ramp into the mission plan. The company said it would only fire the orbital insertion burn if flight controllers confirmed enough backup hardware remained for the deorbit burn, a condition Teslarati laid out ahead of the flight. Losing an engine was exactly the scenario that rule was built for.

Pressing forward fits Elon Musk’s history. Falcon 1 failed three straight times before its fourth launch reached orbit in 2008, with SpaceX nearly out of money, and Starship was developed by flying prototypes until they broke. What changed this year SpaceX going public, and with $SPCX sliding below its IPO price in July when Flight 13 slipped, the short interest climbed significantly, as Teslarati reported at the time. A Starship potentially lost today with revenue generating next-gen Starlink satellites aboard would have landed directly on shareholders.

That pressure showed up after orbit. SpaceX cut a flight planned to last nearly 10 hours to about three, moving splashdown from west of Chile to the North Pacific near Hawaii. SpaceX gave no reason, though Musk said this month the company was being extremely cautious about debris risk. The single Raptor for deorbit worked, and Ship 41 completed its flip and landing burn before breaking apart in the water, an outcome SpaceX expected. Musk has structured SpaceX’s governance to shield long term bets from market pressure.

Advertisement
-

The payload is the bigger business story. Musk posted that all 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed and are “operating nominally.” Each V3 is rated for about 1 Tbps of downlink and 160 Gbps of uplink, so this single launch adds roughly 26 Tbps, about 10 times what a Falcon 9 load of V2 Mini satellites adds. The V3 is too large for Falcon 9, making Starship the only vehicle that can build out the planned 100,000 satellite constellation, at up to 60 per flight once it reaches routine service. Unlike the 20 V3 units on Flight 13, which reentered on a suborbital path, these will raise their orbits and could begin serving customers within weeks and bring in hundreds of millions of additional dollars in projected Starlink revenue.

SpaceX has already begun winding down Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida in favor of Starship. Reported targets put Flight 15 as early as October 19, leaving about three weeks to diagnose Monday’s engine shutdown before the next orbital attempt.

Continue Reading