Autopilot is the correct term. I'm tired of always having to cater to the lowest common denominator.
It seems like an airliner flying at altitude has quite large safety margins compared to a car on a highway.
Pilots typically have more time to react, though (astronauts lie even further away along this axis; in cases where astronauts can take action to save their lives, they typically have even more time, but also, in many cases, there's no action that will save them)
As to the "take control at a moments notice": that's where the problem lies.
The arguments in "Ironies of Automation" (https://www.ise.ncsu.edu/nsf_itr/794B/papers/Bainbridge_1983...) such as "By taking away the easy parts of his task, automation can make the difficult parts of the human operator's task more difficult" haven't lost any of their power in the 30+ years since it was published.
Because of that, I doubt the typical driver will be able to handle emergency situations, as it will require frequent training.
How are the consequences much more dramatic while flying? I can think of plenty of scenarios while driving where you go from perfect autopilot conditions with no visible risks to death of passengers or pedestrians in <5 seconds.
There is just no excuse for using that particular term for this particular technology.
When I'm using the Autopilot, I feel like I'm in my airplane, always on guard, and in a practice of recovery from unusual attitude in flight.
There are a few times also where being an engineer has helped a lot. You can pretty much predict the situations where the car will run into issues and conflicts ahead of time, just by looking at the scenario in front of you.
It's something that the majority of population is not trained to do.
Now having said that, I used to own a BMW X5 with Adaptive Cruise Control, and that car was also doing some pretty stupid things at times, especially when cars in front were moving out of the way. The car would suddenly think the way was clear and floor the accelerator...
I really want to hack the can bus and give it more smarts. What is the legality of that?
Your argument fails as the analogy of car drivers with airplane pilots fails on various grounds.
a. The airplanes, which provides autopilot facility, their pilots have to undergo more rigorous and stringent training than what a ordinary car driver has to undergo
b. for different types of airplane autopilot systems the pilots have to undergo different types of trainings (you have not mentioned what kind of autopilot you have used, but I'd doubt if your autopilot training on one type of plane will automatically certify you to drive all kinds of auto-pilot planes out there, even within the same airplane category)
c. what Tesla is doing is on one hand it is saying (in fact, screaming in its adverts) that "we are bringing autopilot in cars", "we are bringing autopilot in cars" but when it actually is bringing just a driver assistance system and when that causes accidents, Tesla is putting blame on the customers for not understanding what is autopilot. This is not fair, as Tesla does NOT put any requirement for more rigorous and stringent training for its drivers the way airplane manufacturers/airliners put. So, Tesla is playing with the lives of not only its drivers but also of the other road users.
You are welcome to counter-argue my points. But this too much hoohaa about auto-pilot by Tesla and the subsequent bad publicity it is going to bring them is not good for them. People will not be subtle then because Tesla is not being subtle in their adverts now.
edit : typo
Things obviously converge with more complex aircrafts, as it would be quite difficult to find, let's say, two Airbus A320 with drastically different stacks, but some of them, like Cessna 172 Skyhawk, have been in production since 1956, with aircraft technology making quite a progress in those 60 years.
If all your training has been done on a 1956 Cessna 172, is it wise to operate a 2016 model without sufficient training? No. Legal? Yes.
> Tesla does NOT put any requirement for more rigorous and stringent training for its drivers
Beyond saying "Don't take tour hands off the wheel and be prepared to take over any moment" what kind of training would you envision them offering outside of [insert state name] Driver's Handbook? Most states already offer free defensive driving courses as well.
But I'd like to bring counter-argument to your points (a) and (b): taking away the autopilot feature from both airplanes and cars, an airplane pilot still has to undergo substantially more training than a car driver does, so imho the increased training for pilots compared to vehicle drivers is largely coming from the difficulty in controlling the machine and the more deadly consequence of control-loss to the driver / pilot and to the others.
That being said, the term autopilot is being used opportunistically. There's no way Tesla will back away from the term now, so the next best thing is to warn the user, in every step of the way, that "YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD IDIOT", to the point that if they can detect your hands not on the wheel a warning sounds.
I do believe the Tesla Autopilot and the autonomous mode in the future will save lives, what we're experiencing is the growing pain till we get there.
But part of the training that a pilot of an "airplane with autopilot" has to undergo has to do with understanding what the autopilot can and cannot do and what the pilot has to do.
Tesla is not making this mandatory for their drivers to undergo rigorous training regarding this very feature that they taut so much. Then as you have pointed out they are opportunistically advertising that very feature and then when the unsuspecting user is caught off-guard, the Tesla is shouting "Gotcha, you didn't read the fine print. See, it is clearly mentioned here". If then the customer says that but that thing was mentioned amongst thousand other things and that too in font so small, Tesla will counter him/her "see, that's your problem not ours." If that's what they want then be it so. If that's what is making them happy then be it so.
It may help Tesla win some law-suit. But they will clearly and surely lose big on the customer trust.
>>"YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD IDIOT"
Btw, It's not fair to say the user an "idiot" when the larger idiocy (and not just idiocy but a cruel practical joke on the customers bordering on criminal activity as it may be at the cost of customer's life) is committed by Tesla manufacturers.
Sad, I was a fan of Tesla but no more.
Combine ignorance with misguided self-righteousness, and we get...this mess.
Ask 99 out of 100 people who aren't pilots, but who might be Tesla customers, and see if they can recite what you wrote below:
While on autopilot you are still expected to be monitoring the flight and take control at a moments notice. Autopilot does not allow the pilot to take a nap or go in the back and party with the flight attendants.
And how do you know all that? Because you were trained accordingly.
I'm not saying Tesla shouldn't offer the feature in their cars. I'm saying they shouldn't have named it after a feature that people think allows pilots to party with the flight attendants.
Human factors are a thing. And it's a little scary that some guys who build rockets and plan Mars missions on the side don't seem to understand that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24296544
Over half of pilots admit to sleeping while on autopilot. These are people who had to take months and years of training to fly.
Meanwhile,to be a driver you need to drive for 15 minutes and do some basic manouvers. In some places of the world, not even that. And we hope that those people will "keep an eye on the road" while the autopilot feature is running? It sounds great in theory, but it's not going to happen. We need a system that can operate completely without human supervision - but that ain't happening any time soon either.
Unfortunately fighting how the words end up used is pretty hopeless.
