Social media is saturated with videos that seem plucked from science fiction: individuals “driving” Teslas on autopilot with Apple Vision Pro headphones hiding their eyes.
These scenes have set off alarm bells among federal transportation authorities, although it appears that at least some of the posts are skits filmed for content with the hope of going viral. The New York Times reported.
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The Apple Vision Pro glasses, released February 2 and starting at $3,499, let users watch videos, browse the Internet and more in immersive virtual reality. Apple sold more than 200,000 earbuds during pre-sales, according to a source familiar with Apple’s sales numbers, according to MacRumors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that “driving while wearing a VR headset is reckless and does not take into account the safety of everyone on the road” after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned of the danger in a blog post on X.
Reminder: ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully involved in the driving task at all times. pic.twitter.com/OpPy36mOgC
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) February 5, 2024
Buttigieg stressed that despite technological advances, people must “be in control and fully engaged in the task of driving at all times.”
During a four-month period in 2022, eleven people were killed in U.S. crashes involving vehicles using self-driving systems, and ten of those deaths involved vehicles made by Tesla, according to government data reported by the Associated Press.
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But 21-year-old Dante Lentini, the creator of one of the videos that has garnered more than 24 million views, said his post – titled “Think Different” in an apparent nod to Apple’s 1990s ad campaign – was not nothing but a stunt and that the police cars captured at the end of the video were not connected to him.
Think differently. #applevisionpro pic.twitter.com/dEALUsntS8
— Dante (@lentinidante) February 2, 2024
Tesla did not respond to the NYT’s request for comment, and Apple directed the outlet to its website for safety guidance on appropriate use of the Vision Pro.