Social media is saturated with movies that appear torn from science fiction: people “driving” Teslas on Autopilot with Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional headsets concealing their eyes.

These scenes have set off alarm bells amongst federal transportation authorities, although it appears no less than a number of the posts are skits filmed for content material with the hopes of going viral, The New York Occasions reported.

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The Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional goggles, which have been launched on February 2 and begin at $3,499, enable customers to look at movies, surf the web, and extra in an immersive digital actuality. Apple offered greater than 200,000 of the headsets throughout its presale, in keeping with a supply with data of Apple’s gross sales numbers, per MacRumors.

The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration mentioned on Tuesday that “driving whereas carrying a V.R. headset is reckless and disregards the protection of everybody on the street” after transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg warned of the hazard in a publish printed on X.

Reminder—ALL superior driver help techniques out there right this moment require the human driver to be in management and absolutely engaged within the driving process always. pic.twitter.com/OpPy36mOgC

— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) February 5, 2024

Buttigieg harassed that regardless of developments in know-how, folks should “be in management and absolutely engaged within the driving process always.”

Throughout a four-month interval in 2022, eleven folks have been killed in U.S. crashes involving automobiles that have been utilizing automated self-driving techniques, and ten of these deaths concerned automobiles made by Tesla, per authorities information reported by The Related Press.

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However 21-year-old Dante Lentini, a creator behind one of many movies that racked up greater than 24 million views, claimed that his publish — captioned “Suppose totally different” in a seeming name again to Apple’s Nineteen Nineties promoting marketing campaign — was nothing greater than a stunt and that police automobiles captured on the finish of the video weren’t there in connection to him.

Suppose totally different. #applevisionpro pic.twitter.com/dEALUsntS8

— Dante (@lentinidante) February 2, 2024

Tesla did not reply to the NYT’s request for remark, and Apple directed the outlet to its web site for security steering on the suitable use of Imaginative and prescient Professional.