Yeah autopilot is similar in airplanes to what autopilot is on Teslas. Not sure what else you could call it without it also being confusing. Autopilot is a tool

Yeah autopilot is similar in airplanes to what autopilot is on Teslas. Not sure what else you could call it without it also being confusing. Autopilot is a tool to stay in your lane and prevent common scenarios like keeping speed, avoiding obstacles and keeping distance, though there are still possible edge cases like this one appeared to be that can be more dangerous than not using it as the systems are not fully autonomous. Even with airplanes, if something gets in the way, autopilot won't always save you and can only alert you when the situation gets bad i.e. oncoming airplane or obstacle, altitude, speed etc. We fly in planes with autopilot and we are safer for it, but pilots/drivers still need to be alert and operating the plane. Teslas aren't fully autonomous and probably can't truly be until everything is connected and more cars on the road are autonomous for expected behavior. I trust autopilot in planes but still want a pilot. Most likely autopilot will be more useful in large buses, trucks, shipping, boats, airliners than individuals as you will still need a driver most of the time. Even the Uber crash could have possibly been avoided with a more alert driver. One area that may cause more crashes in the interim is trusting the software too much, autopilot that does work six sigma 99.999999% of the time may lead to a possible issue of driver comfort with the technology that may still have edge cases that can endanger them. This issue was a factor in the Tesla crash and the Uber crash I think a huge overlooked part of the failure here was the previous accidents at this part of the road and the lack of repair. We have a serious infrastructure issue with disrepair, non automated/untracked driving of humans probably ends up badly in these areas but goes unnoticed or is suppressed as road design can be a big factor, this automated crash highlighted an issue here at this offramp/fork that probably would go unnoticed and cause more issues. If nothing else, automated driving will have the data to fix these bad areas of our infrastructure and double down on safety and protections.