‘Cyber’ is back by popular demand

Maybe the barrage of AI news is such that one no longer sees the titles, or maybe the wave of AI hype is subsiding, but the word 'cyber' was prominent in my newsfeed and for wildly various reasons.

First, it was the introduction of the Cybercab, aka robotaxi, by Tesla. The two-door vehicle, which opens up like a billionaire's car, with no steering wheel and no pedals. The excitement was tempered by the announcement that the cab will be available before 2027, which, if everything goes according to plan, is two years in the future.

One small detail Tesla is still trying to resolve is the self-driving capability, originally promised in 2018.

While its competition is already raking in autonomously-piloted miles, the NHTSA just opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla cars equipped with full self-driving software — a software which doesn’t self-drive.

The other interesting part of the announcement was that the car will be sold for less than $30,000, and it will cost $0.20 per mile to operate.

I found it confusing that a car, which is introduced as a cab or taxi — forget the cyber or robo term, it is irrelevant — comes with a price tag and a cost per mile. Who is the target market or customer here? Is it an individual driver? Why would a person buy a cab? Last time I checked, two seaters are not the top-sellers of any mass-production car company.

If this product isn’t for individuals, was the announcement targeted at Uber or taxi companies? Uber’s business model is not based around buying and owning cars, but about providing the infrastructure that matches drivers and passengers for a ride. It is the driver who carries the capital cost.

Let’s assume the Cybercab, loaded with Tesla's self-driving software, connected to Tesla's supercomputer via Starlink and using Tesla charging stations, doesn't need anybody or anything else to exist or operate.

For Tesla, it’s sufficient to obtain a license from city hall — or an organization that oversees taxi service — bring truckloads of these cars, dump them on the streets and tell people to download an app on their phones.

If that's the case, why announce the price and cost per mile?

Unless, of course, Tesla intends to offload the capital cost to third parties, then run the cars on their behalf. It would mean the company will make money building these cars and also operating them.

In other words, Tesla will sell these cars to customers. That’s the first payment. But it’s unclear what the ‘operational cost’ of  $0.20 per mile includes. It could be the cost of charging, insuring and maintaining the car. Or it might also include licensing fees to Tesla.

These cars will be money-making machines for Tesla every second of their lifespan.

One has to come to terms with the future of transportation. When self-driving cars are roaming the streets, you will never really own the car and be free to go anywhere you want.

The next cyber-related story, 'This AI Tool Helped Convict People of Murder. Then Someone Took a Closer Look' documents in great depth a story about a company called Global Intelligence.

This enterprise claims its cybercheck technology can assist in finding key evidence that helps police nail suspects.

One doesn't have to go far to see the use of flowery language to describe great features while revealing nothing: '3-Layer Authentication — our intelligence passes through three layers of analysis where each layer must agree with all other layers generating high confidence in the case report findings.'

Or: 'Real-Time and Historical Data — broad data sources are used to build narrative case reports. Cybercheck doesn’t store data sets, the Internet is our data set. Get location, movement, signaling, and cyber profile data with rich context and correlation to crime scenes and relationships.'

The company claims that it is using only publicly-available data, where issuing a warrant is not required.

Perhaps scraping your Instagram account, where you post a picture with the title, 'Having breakfast after I ran over the dog,' with a date and a location, is a dead giveaway, but unless you have access to log files from the telecom provider, or you hack into nearby WiFi routers, you don't know if this person was at that location at that time.

To get access to this information, you either need a warrant or you obtain the data in a not-so-legal way.

'Smart,' 'cyber,' and 'AI' are terms which should evoke the feeling that something is new, better and futuristic — and if you don't get it, you are either too old or not sophisticated enough.

But there’s an easy test. Every time you hear or read about anything new, remove the trendy term and see if it makes sense. If it doesn't, the buzzword is there to obfuscate the lack of substance.

That's a recurrent pattern which will serve you well in the future.