It's clear to me that the auto steer technology is pretty far from an "auto pilot", but the drivers are not making the distinction. I think that semi-automatic

It's clear to me that the auto steer technology is pretty far from an "auto pilot", but the drivers are not making the distinction. I think that semi-automatic systems like this are fundamentally broken due to unrealistic expectations in the man-machine interface. There is virtually no chance that the driver will be alert and able to detect and correct problems after hours of uneventful driving, including previous driving. Even if the auto assist feature signals that it is confused, there is probably very little the driver can do until it's too late. One example is the AF 443 crash where the auto pilot disengaged due to a significant but not immediately threatening mechanical problem, and the pilot (flying) got so distressed that instead of following the check lists (memory item even) he more or less just dropped out of the sky in a massive stall that took about 2 minutes. I digress but a speculation is that in that particular case, the pilot was not helped by the fact that the airplane changed the input mode (or "law") as the sensor data was not complete due to same problem - the pilot's input was nominally consistent with the normal flight law but was in reality inducing a fatal stall.