During a conference call announcing that all Tesla vehicles will now have self-driving hardware, Elon Musk slammed the media on Wednesday for its close coverage of autonomous vehicle accidents, blaming journalists for any deaths involving conventional cars that may occur as a result.
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“Writing an article that’s negative, you’re effectively dissuading people from using autonomous vehicles, you’re killing people,” said Musk.
Comparing the relatively rare self-driving car accidents to the many more deadly collisions involving non-autonomous vehicle that occur each day, the Tesla co-founder said the attention paid to the former reflected poorly on the media.
Musk’s conclusion, of course, presumes that autonomous cars are definitively safer than conventional vehicles and will reduce deaths once adopted. That may be true some day, but given the current state of self-driving tech, it seems worth asking for proof.