Products purchased in the past were of the finished variety, with no chance at organic upgrades. Software and the cloud began to change that, and now with the Internet of Things and Deep Learning, objects from refrigerators to cars will be upgradeable in real time, taking in information as it becomes available. The potential for good to come of this is remarkable, and the downside, a constant invasion of privacy, is undeniable.

Elon Musk, who has a love/hate affair with AI, is excited that his EVs will learn as they go. Katie Fehrenbacher of Fortune reports that at the unveiling of the company’s autopilot system, the Tesla CEO stressed the self-improving capacity of the cars: “The whole fleet operates as a network. When one car learns something, they all learn it.” 

The opening:

While Tesla’s new hands-free driving is drawing a lot of interest this week, it’s the technology behind-the-scenes of the company’s newly-enabled autopilot service that should be getting more attention.

At an event on Wednesday Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk explained that the company’s new autopilot service is constantly learning and improving thanks to machine learning algorithms, the car’s wireless connection, and detailed mapping and sensor data that Tesla collects.

Tesla’s cars in general have long been using data, and over-the-air software updates, to improve the way they operate.

Machine learning algorithms are the latest in computer science where computers can take a large data set, analyze it and use it to make increasingly accurate predictions. In short, they are learning.•