Tesla's layoffs hit Autopilot team as AI develops

Washington, DC (CNN)Tesla (TSLA) is increasingly turning to machines rather than humans as it attempts to develop autonomous vehicles. As part of Tesla's plans to cut 10% of salaried staff, the company has laid off a significant number of its data annotation specialists. These specialists do grunt work that is critical to empowering artificial intelligence systems to handle complex tasks like driving safely down a city street. The layoffs were first reported by Bloomberg Tuesday and confirmed by CNN Business. Data annotation specialists use software tools to manually label objects in video clips collected from Tesla vehicles.