AI scientist blames Tesla for her traumatic mind damage

A budding AI researcher’s future has been thrown into question after her Tesla’s collision-avoidance systems failed to activate until another car had already slammed into hers, leaving the woman with a traumatic brain injury and lasting cognitive issues, according to a product liability lawsuit reviewed by The Independent.

Samaneh Movassaghi is an “internationally recognized, award-winning artificial intelligence scientist whose career is globally acknowledged as being in a rare, early-phase trajectory of exceptional innovation and economic value,” the 23-page complaint begins.

At the time of the crash, the 39-year-old San Francisco resident’s work in machine learning, autonomous systems and advanced computational research placed her “among a small fraction of world-leading AI experts whose lifetime earning potential, research contributions, and societal impact are extraordinary,” the complaint goes on.

It notes that the industry requires “sustained high-precision executive functioning, rapid-cycle reasoning and uninterrupted cognitive stamina,” and that “[e]ven mild neurological impairment can cause catastrophic, career-ending consequences in the field of advanced AI innovation.”

However, the complaint continues, the injuries caused by Movassaghi’s “defective” Model Y during a crash have “severely disrupted her professional path, derailed significant ongoing research activities, and impaired her ability to function at the elite cognitive level required in her field.”

In 2021, Tesla, the electric car company headed by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, stopped installing radar sensors in its vehicles. The following year, the company decided to drop ultrasonic sensors, in favor of a less expensive camera-only approach to advanced driver assistance systems. Still, Musk and Tesla touted the company’s cars as being intelligent enough to “see” pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles, and, for example, automatically apply the brakes if a collision was imminent.

This, according to the complaint – as well as many experts – was a “deliberate and reckless decision,” as Tesla’s internal data showed the new setup was “unreliable, unvalidated, and capable of catastrophic failure during a foreseeable crash event.”

“Tesla chose speed over safety, public perception over truth, and profits over human lives,” the complaint states. “… The failures here were not mere malfunctions; they were systemic engineering defects that rendered the product unreasonably dangerous to a degree far outside normal consumer contemplation.”

Had Tesla continued using a combination of different sensors, the crash that injured Movassaghi might never have happened, attorney Dominic Flamiano told The Independent.

Flamiano, who is representing Movassaghi in her case, said a “belt-and-suspenders” system – that is, one with built-in redundancy – is key when it comes to collision-avoidance. A more robust “stack” would almost certainly have spotted the oncoming car that Movassaghi’s Tesla missed, and could have braked or swerved to avoid an accident, according to Flamiano.

A Tesla spokesperson did not respond on Tuesday to a request for comment.

On December 4, 2023, Movassaghi was behind the wheel of her white Tesla Model Y, which she had purchased 15 months earlier, according to her complaint, which was initially filed in San Francisco Superior Court before being removed to federal court last week.

Around11:30 p.m., as she crossed through an intersection in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, a black Volkswagen Passat ran a red light and T-boned Movassaghi’s Tesla, ramming the passenger side of the car immediately behind the front wheel, the complaint states. The Tesla’s front and side airbags deployed, and both cars sustained significant damage.

Flamiano described the layout of the intersection as having a building on one corner that rendered the Tesla’s cameras useless, but said radar is able to detect objects through walls and other solid objects. Movassaghi was traveling at around 40 mph at the time, Flamiano added. From the evidence gathered, Flamiano said it appeared that the camera-only collision avoidance systems were ineffective, and that the Automatic Emergency Braking feature did not kick in until after the Tesla had been broadsided.

An accompanying police report obtained by The Independent says the driver of the Passat told officers she had looked down momentarily to put away a Kit Kat she was eating, and didn’t see the light had changed. The woman was issued a citation and taken to San Francisco General Hospital for pain in her left leg.

Movassaghi was rushed to an emergency room with a brain injury, according to the complaint. In addition to the failure of “various safety systems and subsystems” that did nothing to help Movassaghi avoid the crash, the complaint says the steering wheel airbag defectively deployed, exploding in Movassaghi’s face and covering her in microscopic toxic particles.

Tesla, in fact, issued a recall for the 2022 Model Y following Movassaghi’s wreck, for problems the complaint claims confirms the company’s “pre-sale knowledge of the precise safety defects that caused [her] injuries.” Feasible alternative designs were available, and are in use by Tesla’s competitors, the complaint states.

Movassaghi’s lawsuit is the latest in a long string of legal actions taken against Tesla by drivers, passengers, and their families.

In December, a Utah man whose wife, two daughters, son-in-law and their dog were crushed to death when their Tesla Model X suddenly crossed a road’s center line and smashed head-on into a tractor-trailer, sued the automaker and Musk over claims they “intentionally misrepresented the safety of their vehicles.”

Musk, according to the complaint, oversells the technology in order to, among other things, “generate excitement” about Tesla, to pump up its stock price, and to help “establish Tesla as a dominant player in the electric vehicle market, all at the expense of the public’s safety.”

Last June, a motorcyclist sued after being hit by a Tesla Model 3 in Autopilot mode that unexpectedly veered across multiple lanes of highway traffic, demolishing the bike and sending the rider and his passenger to the hospital.

That same month, Tesla was sued by relatives of a driver who was incinerated alive inside his burning Tesla Cybertruck when the electrically-operated doors wouldn’t open after power was lost.

More than two years later, Movassaghi is still experiencing neurological, physiological and psychological effects from the collision, according to her complaint. These include impaired concentration, reduced cognitive stamina, emotional trauma, sleep disruption, anxiety, irritability, and difficulty performing complex reasoning tasks, it says. As a result, the complaint asserts, her earnings have taken a major hit and her career opportunities have stalled.

She is seeking general and special damages for past and future medical and rehabilitation expenses and past and future lost earnings, plus punitive and exemplary damages to be determined by a jury, as well as legal costs.

Source: independent.co.uk