I'd have thought that all such systems will use a combination of machine learning and programmed logic. They have to deal with novel situations, but also know what stop and speed signs mean. I was driving a Corolla hire car this week that was reading the speed signs, but it had no self drive.
Musk is known to have been misleading about what his cars can do in previous demonstrations. I'm avoiding his platform anyway.
Reading the speed signs is a feature of MobilEye which was an Israeli startup bought by Intel. It also does lane assistance. It's barely a pocket calculator to the super computer capabilities in Tesla cars. I've had it in my car for 6 years, it's never been updated. It sometimes has trouble with the yellow lines we now have marking special lanes for buses.
The end result of whether it is heuristic code or neural net is the same, what he's showing off now, however, drastically improves how fast the system can improve or move into new areas.
Musk and Tesla have always had bad press because they don't play the usual games with the media and pay for advertising. I won't be betting against him on anything.
I think he has smart people working for him, but he makes some questionable decisions. That may catch up with him
A bunch of sub mediocre media people are trying to tell you what to think about him.
When they've achieved something comparable to building the team which launched more stuff into orbit this year than the rest of the world combined it might be time to pay attention to them.
His only significant mistake in my eyes was over paying for Twitter, but buying it was genius. This makes him terrifying to many established figures.