Good Monday Morning! Itās May 10th. Happy belated Mothersā Day š to all the mamas ā including mine! ā reading SWIRL this morning! In honor of all the cool moms out there, I made a Mom Jeans playlist:
Let these sweet mom jams serenade you as you get into this weekās SWIRL:
š± Tech:Ā Teslaās tumultuous week
š Business: A unicorn rises in Canada
š Politics: FCC decision was flooded with fraud
If this is your first SWIRL, keep reading this part. If not, carry on to the content.
Welcome, new Swirlers! Hereās a brief reader guide: the three teasers above unfurl below to briefly cover a buzzy development in their respective area. Youāll read a little about each one. At the end, we pull on a common thread among all three and explore what it might mean for us. If you missed last weekās SWIRL, tuck inĀ here.
š± Tech: Teslaās tumultuous week
Thatās not the Bloomberg headline you want if youāre Elon Musk, especially if youāre a couple days away from appearing live š on SNL, but thatās the Bloomberg headline Elon Musk got.
A round of emails š§ between Californiaās Department of Motor Vehicles and a Tesla engineer were the subject of Bloomberg reporting on Friday. But letās back up š for a second. On New Yearās Day, Musk tweeted about his positive outlook for Teslaās self-driving system:
In a recent internal memo, a DMV š executive wrote āElonās tweet does not match engineering reality per CJ.ā The statement was based on March 2021 discussions between the DMV and CJ Moore, the Director of Autopilot Software at Tesla.
Over the last couple of months, Musk has continued to publicly suggest that the software in Teslaās ā”ļø vehicles will achieve the ability to operate without a human driver this year, a position his top software engineer calls into question.
Californiaās DMV has a special interest š§ in these claims. Tesla has been testing a beta version of its āfull-self drivingā software through a āNavigate on Autopilot on City Streetsā program since October of last year. As of March of this year, there were 824 vehicles piloting the technology. Most of those vehicles are operating š in California, which explains why the state has been closely tracking Teslaās efforts.
In the same timespan, several high-profile tragedies involving Tesla vehicles have made national news š. Investigations into the deadly accidents have raised questions about the electric car companyās self-driving tech.
To help inform the public about the safety of its vehicles, Tesla releases a quarterly safety report š. The latest data appear to indicate that the Autopilot features can improve safety when properly used. Citing the report, Musk said in April āTesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than average vehicle.ā
However, the top autonomous driving official at Californiaās DMV, Miguel Acosta, recently wrote š to one of the top lawyers at Tesla, imploring the automaker toā¦
āprovide clear and effective communication to customers, buyers and the general publicā about its Autopilot features, their capabilities and how they should be used.
āAs Tesla is aware, the publicās misunderstanding about the limits of the technology and its misuse can have tragic consequences,ā - Miguel Acosta, California DMV Autonomous Driving Branch Chief
š Business: A unicorn rises in Canada
Last Monday, we talked about a blockchain startup on its way to becoming a billion-dollar company. On Friday, another startup announced they just reached that milestone, officially making them a unicorn š¦.
Ada, a Toronto-based tech firm, announced that its latest fundraising round lifted its total valuation above $1Bš°. Youāve probably never heard of Ada, but thereās a good chance youāve interacted with its products, or to be more specific, its robots š¤.
The 6-year old company focuses on increasing the volume and quality of interactions between online consumers and online companies through chat robots, (AKA chatbots) which are computer-based customer service helpers. A recent Forbes piece dives deeper š¤ on chatbots if youāre interested.
In the past, large companies have struggled with maintaining great customer service as they expand āļø their businesses. Ada wants to change that.
āWe are revolutionizing the way brands interact with their customers at scale. We enable a new paradigm: the ability to speak to your customers more ā not less ā as you grow. We will use this new round of funding to accelerate our automationās impact across every stage of the customer journey, and more than double our team size to 500+.ā - Mark Murchison, Ada CEO & Co-founder
Adaās current clients š¤ include behemoths like Facebook, Zoom, Square, and Shopify. Safe to say theyāre in good company. According to its website, the startup can help these companies answer 80% of customer inquiries without requiring a live customer-service representative to engage. Thatās a lot of potential savings.
And that potential has kept investor interest high enough to push past a critical milestone in Adaās journey š£ to becoming a multi-billion dollar business ā and a possible future IPO.
š Politics: FCC decision was flooded with fraud
The governmentās focus š on internet access and big tech is a popular topic here at SWIRL š, and this weekās story out of New York is full of drama.
There are several moving parts, so weāll take them in pieces.
š° The headline: On Thursday, New Yorkās Attorney General office released a report outlining how internet providers funded a secret š¤« effort to manufacture fake public comments in the run-up to the FCCās 2017 decision to repeal Net Neutrality (more on that in moments). From the press release:
Multi-Year Investigation Into 2017 Net Neutrality Rulemaking Finds 18 Million
Fake Comments Filed with FCC, Half a Million Fake Letters Sent to CongressBroadband Industry Funded Six Companies That Engaged in Illegal Activity and Impersonated Millions of Americans
š° Letās time-hop:
2003: The term ānet neutralityā is coined by Colombia law professor, Tim Wu, who makes the case in a scholarly paper that the internet should be regulated like a public utility
2015: The Obama administration implements net neutrality rules regulating internet companies, similar to how phone & electricity companies remain regulated today
2017: Then FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai ā a Republican appointed by Obama, elevated to Chairman by Trump ā led the commission to repeal the Obama era net neutrality rules after hearings & public commenting sessions
2021: Notably, Tim Wu is appointed to the Biden White House to take on big tech & competition; NY AG reveals that the majority of public comments received by FCC were faked by internet companies, which brings us back to today
šµš¾āāļø The fraud: The AGās office noted that 22 million public comments were included in the FCCās review; 18 million were faked.
āļø The punishment: Three firms hired by internet companies were fined a total of $4M.
š£ The FCCās response:
āThe public record should be a place for honest dialogue, but todayās report demonstrates how the record informing the FCCās net neutrality repeal was flooded with fraud. This was troubling at the time because even then the widespread problems with the record were apparent,ā FCC Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement Thursday. āWe have to learn from these lessons and improve because the public deserves an open and fair opportunity to tell Washington what they think about the policies that affect their lives.ā
š® The future: If youāre interested in hearing more about whatās happening with net neutrality today & moving forward, Senator Ed Markey will be joining Vox for a live event on Wednesday to discuss the topic.
See you thereā¦unless youāre a fake person, in which case please donāt come.
So, how do our three stories swirl together?Ā Our SWIRL last week weighed the tradeoffs consumers and citizens make for the sake of convenience. This week, weāre tackling Automation.
We hear a lot about automated intelligence/AI, automated driving, automated answering services, the automation of jobsā¦itās seemingly everywhere. This weekās SWIRL š rotates around three automation stories.
š Teslaās automated driving technology
š¤ Adaās automated chatbot products
š¬ FCCās vulnerability to automated public opinion
š Tesla
We love that technology is advancing towards a future where cars could operate without drivers. While we still donāt know what that looks like, we do know that we could re-purpose a lot of time if we werenāt stuck behind the wheel. Time = money. Whatās at stake? Safety ā for now, self-driving technology isnāt safe enough to widely deploy & itāll be a long road ahead to build the needed trust with governments and individuals.
š¤ Ada
We love that customer service is getting smarter & more readily available. Most large organizations already outsource their standard customer care to large call centers. Adaās products could further reduce their reliance on live support representatives. Whatās at stake? Jobs ā in America alone, there are 2.8 million call center employees1.
š¬ FCC
We love that the internet enables us to make our voices heard to decision makers. Being able to contact government officials has never been easier or more efficient, thanks to technology. Whatās at stake? Trust ā well-resourced organizations can scheme to improperly influence big decisions by abusing technology, like we saw in the FCCās online comment submissions; if the publicās voices are drowned out by special interests, trust in government will be further eroded.
The good news about all of our āat stakeā features? We can ensure good outcomes if we stay engaged, add our perspectives to these dialogues, and help each other make smart choices about how to balance progress with principals.
While weāre touching on progress and principalsā¦
Did an automated āMatt from SWIRLā write this weekās issue? Youāll never know2.
And thatās it for this weekās SWIRL - see you next week!
-Matt from SWIRL
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/881114/contact-center-employees-united-states/
Actually, you will know. I did not hire a robot to write SWIRL. But I reserve the right to do so during holiday weekends, like the one coming up in a few weeks. That said, if I ever do include AI-generated content, I promise not to edit it and will clearly denote the AI-text so that we can judge how helpful it is. It could be really funny.