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The problem with the naming has nothing to do with the technical capabilities, but an understanding of how that will impact human-machine interaction. You are a

The problem with the naming has nothing to do with the technical capabilities, but an understanding of how that will impact human-machine interaction. You are absolutely right that aircraft autopilot is a lot "dumber" in a sense. But there is no ambiguity in the fact that when the pilot turns on the autopilot, he can -- and does expect -- the computer to take over all flight operations. By naming the system autopilot, Tesla has also created that same expectation with their customers. Not only that, but it has at best turned a blind eye to reports and videos and stories of customers who willfully take their hands of the wheel/sit in the back seat/etc. and at worst encouraged an erroneous public perception of how the autopilot system should be used. The issues you cited in handoffs with airplanes are far more complicated when it comes to cars, where decisions need necessarily to be taken in a much shorter period of time. But all of that seems really downplayed by Tesla marketing, which instead chooses to aggressively market just how close the system is to full driving autonomy, instead of more like a gentle aid to monotonous highway driving. The disconnect between their official documentation and their marketing is immense. That is what is potentially dangerous.

mikeash 10y ago
"But there is no ambiguity in the fact that when the pilot turns on the autopilot, he can -- and does expect -- the computer to take over all flight operations." What do you mean by this? There are many autopilots which won't take over all flight operations. Some only handle a single control axis, or two. More sophisticated ones can indeed handle everything, but that's not the only kind out there. If people think that's what all autopilots do, then the name is still a problem, but that's a bit different.
- jedmeyers 10y ago
  An autopilot in newer light GA aircraft, like Bendix/King KAP-140, is able to hold/climb/descend to an altitude, and maintain heading based on the GPS input, so it does handle hands-on flight operations leaving the pilot to maintain awareness and program the GPS.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Looks like the KAP-140 comes in a single-axis version too.
falcolas 10y ago
To add to this, aircraft autopilots have one huge advantage over terrestrial based autopilots: the lack of need to manage collision avoidance. This is handled by ATC in most cases, with the pilot only offering minimal backup (in the case of flying through clouds, no backup). Any vehicular autopilot will need to reliably and consistently take care of collision avoidance. Any autopilot which wants to deem itself better than humans needs to do so much better than the equivalent human (and in a multitude of conditions, such as rain, snow, gravel, idiot drivers...). And this doesn't even consider handover times. An aircraft autopilot could fail completely, and the pilot would still have on the order of minutes to recover (assuming this occurs mid-flight, at cruising altitude). A car autopilot failure would give seconds, in the best case.

mikeash 10y ago

"But there is no ambiguity in the fact that when the pilot turns on the autopilot, he can -- and does expect -- the computer to take over all flight operations." What do you mean by this? There are many autopilots which won't take over all flight operations. Some only handle a single control axis, or two. More sophisticated ones can indeed handle everything, but that's not the only kind out there. If people think that's what all autopilots do, then the name is still a problem, but that's a bit different.

jedmeyers 10y ago
An autopilot in newer light GA aircraft, like Bendix/King KAP-140, is able to hold/climb/descend to an altitude, and maintain heading based on the GPS input, so it does handle hands-on flight operations leaving the pilot to maintain awareness and program the GPS.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Looks like the KAP-140 comes in a single-axis version too.

falcolas 10y ago

To add to this, aircraft autopilots have one huge advantage over terrestrial based autopilots: the lack of need to manage collision avoidance. This is handled by ATC in most cases, with the pilot only offering minimal backup (in the case of flying through clouds, no backup). Any vehicular autopilot will need to reliably and consistently take care of collision avoidance. Any autopilot which wants to deem itself better than humans needs to do so much better than the equivalent human (and in a multitude of conditions, such as rain, snow, gravel, idiot drivers...). And this doesn't even consider handover times. An aircraft autopilot could fail completely, and the pilot would still have on the order of minutes to recover (assuming this occurs mid-flight, at cruising altitude). A car autopilot failure would give seconds, in the best case.