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Comment by DamnInteresting | Hacker News Reader

> Or maybe Tesla should not be allow to call it 'Autopilot' tm with small writing stating that Autopilot is not an autopilot.

I see this complaint frequently, and I find it confusing. The feature is clearly named after the 'autopilot' found on airliners, a system which is designed to do things like maintain heading, manage airspeed, and avoid collisions. Airliner autopilot should not be relied upon for every step of a flight without human oversight, but clearly an airliner with autopilot is safer than one without. And if a pilot engaged autopilot and stretched out for a nap, we wouldn't blame autopilot for any resulting catastrophe.

So, how is Tesla's autopilot meaningfully different from that? They don't call it 'self-driving', 'autonomous', or 'driverless', they've named it after a very similar existing technology.

Tesla deserves a lot of criticism, but this specific complaint strikes me as misplaced.

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> So, how is Tesla's autopilot meaningfully different from that?

Simple.

The user of the tesla autopilot is a car driver that is 'qualified' to drive a car. Driving licence doesnt entail knowledge of how to use tesla's 'autopilot'

You are literately equating a car driver to an air-plane pilot!

A pilot that need to be specifically train for a given model of a plane, and its autopilot. A pilot that is fully aware of the scope of the planes autopilot functionality, also pilot cannot 'go for a nap' when autopilot is engaged.

On top of that, the threat model of potential obstacles in the sky is far simpler. On an airliner you have a heading and speed for every tracked aircraft in your vicinity and the buffer zones are far greater, even accounting for relative increase in speed. It is much more difficult to predict and quickly respond to edge case obstacles and erratic agent behavior on the road.

Perhaps there would be an analogy here if there was something like a centralized control center for autonomous vehicles (rife with opportunities for system-wide hacks and corporate/gov't abuse) or if vehicles were networked and shared travel vector and size data.

Well, I agree with much of what you say, but all I was trying to say is this: If 'autopilot' is a misleading name for Tesla's advanced driver assist system, then isn't it also misleading for airliners to use that term? To me, the two systems appear to be very similar in what they can do.

the only thing both have in common is the spelling

If you're not interested in having a rational discussion about it, you can just say so.

I would like to point out that you are pushing square through circular hole insisting you are doing it right.

Tesla's Autopilot and plane autopilot are different technology requiring different level of training and skill to operate.

Equating both due to name and extrapolating that common person should know better when driving their tesla is slippery-slope towards victim blaming.

Just accept you were wrong.

> slippery-slope towards victim blaming

You forgot to add "straw man cognitive dissonance Dunning–Kruger" to your little fallacy salad.

Hmmm. I see you are out to embarrass yourself even more.

Do go one share your thoughts.

Tesla lost the right to call it Autopilot in Germany. So even courts agree that it is confusing.

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