Tesla fired an Autopilot employee named John Bernal after he posted YouTube videos showing his Tesla's Full Self Driving Beta system hitting bollards and experiencing safety issues during testing on public roads.
John Bernal, a Tesla Autopilot employee working as a data annotation specialist and later as an advanced driver assistance systems test operator, was fired in February 2022 after posting candid video reviews on his YouTube channel 'AI Addict' showing Tesla's Full Self Driving Beta system. Bernal had been testing the FSD Beta software in his personally-owned 2021 Tesla Model 3 around Silicon Valley since February 2021. His videos showed both positive and negative aspects of the system, including approximately 10 out of 60 videos that revealed flaws such as the car hitting bollards, nearly colliding with other vehicles, running red lights, and requiring manual intervention to avoid danger. One notable incident in San Jose showed his Tesla hitting a pylon while FSD Beta was engaged. Tesla managers verbally told him he 'broke Tesla policy' and that his YouTube channel was a 'conflict of interest,' though his written separation notice did not specify a reason for dismissal. After firing him, Tesla also revoked his access to the FSD Beta system in his personal vehicle, despite him having no safety 'strikes.' The FSD Beta program involves approximately 60,000 customers testing experimental autonomous driving features on public roads.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed