Data Sheet: Tesla inquiry, iPhone in China, robo-taxi IPO, Bluesky bump, Perplexity launch

Half of Americans think so, according to a recent survey by Talker Research. (And a quarter of Americans think absolutely otherwise. Yowza.)

My favorite stat among the findings? That 4 in 10 Americans believe that past behavior to AI agents will one day be taken into account.

Scene: Saint Peter at the pearly gates. “Denied because you were a bit huffy with Siri when she couldn’t dig up the right phone number. To the bad place.”  —Andrew Nusca

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NHTSA investigating Tesla self-driving software

You might want to wait a minute to turn FSD back on in your Tesla. After four incidents—including one in which a pedestrian was killed—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was conducting a preliminary investigation into Tesla’s “full self-driving” software, which has been installed in some 2.4 million vehicles, according to a notice the U.S. regulator issued last week. 

The agency said there were four specific crashes where a Tesla vehicle was using FSD in low-visibility (think foggy or dusty) conditions. One of the crashes resulted in a fatality, and another involved a reported injury, according to the agency, which said it would be evaluating  whether Tesla’s FSD engineering controls were able to detect and respond to these kinds of lower-visibility conditions the way they should.

The timing isn’t great for Tesla. Earlier in October, CEO Elon Musk announced plans to bring so-called unsupervised FSD—as in “Look Ma, no hands!”—to Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y in Texas and California as early as next year. It’s not the first time NHTSA has investigated Tesla’s driver assistance features, but this latest probe could put a damper on Musk’s plans—at least temporarily. —Jessica Mathews

How iPhone got its groove back

Apple’s iPhone is back, as far as Chinese consumers are concerned.

According to Counterpoint Research, the iPhone 16 has sold 20% more in the country during its first three weeks, compared with sales of the iPhone 15…