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Comment by phobius | Hacker News Reader

could be a well-meaning tech culture screw up; Most tech people know that airplane autopilots weren't end-to-end automated for the majority of their existence

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>Most tech people know

most tech people also know how "better than human" sounds to the public and the average driver. This isn't well meaning tech culture, it's a PR statement that is misleading and formulated the way it is precisely because it is a sales pitch.

It's irresponsible and unethical. It should be called a 'driver assistant' and have a warning label in font size 100 that tells drivers to not treat it as autonomous and infallible.

I wouldn't even ask for the size 100 font, but Elon musk and Tesla to stop hyping their amazing autonomous capabilities (which are all non existent)

As a reasonably self-aware dumb tech person, I would say that this defense would not fly with me any more than "any ____ should know that the product can't actually do that." There's a reason that such consumer protections are in place against claims like this, and especially with something like an auto-pilot, I think it's down-right irresponsible to allow marketing to dilute the reality of the performance. This isn't like GB vs GiB for storage, which is annoying but understandable, it's a tool that has very serious consequences if what is advertised doesn't match up with reality. Caveat Emptor only covers so much, and when you have non-stop marketing material about autonomous vehicles and auto-pilot being produced about your product (whether internally produced or produced by third parties), there is a responsibility to set out a clear expectation for the product.

There is a case that dates back to the early days of the auto industry.

tl;dr: Lady was driving a car and the wheel fell off due to a manufacturing defect. Auto makers said they weren't liable cause Caveat Emptor. Supreme court said a normal person has no way of knowing if the wheel assembly on a car is defective. Auto maker was held liable.

Defective or misleadingly advertised auto pilot? The above on steroids.

I disagree.

Look at what Elon musk and Tesla put out in the event of accidents

> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/04/25/elon-musk-...

> https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accide...

Elon Musk has been hyping Autopilot for what it cannot be for a long long time

> https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/83og60/elon_18...

> Most tech people know that airplane autopilots weren't end-to-end automated for the majority of their existence

The Lockheed TriStar flight-control system flew a fully-automated chocks-to-chocks take-off, flight and landing in ... 1973 I think?

Anyway the comparison with aircraft autopilots is confusing. The pilots will usually couple the autopilot soon after take-off and from then it follows the commands of the Flight Management System through which the pilots interact; new waypoints, level changes etc.

Several test schemes are investigating uploading routings directly from ATC via datalink, with the pilots just having to press a button to accept.

There is also a proposal to permit TCAS to command the autopilot to prevent collisions, instead of providing advisory notice to the pilots.

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