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"An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without constant manual control by a human operator being re

by xxgreg 7y ago

"An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without constant manual control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the vehicle." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

missosoup 7y ago
When autopilot fails, the PIC has minutes to take controls and avert whatever bad thing might happen. When Tesla 'autopilot' fails the driver might have less than a second to take controls and avoid collision. This fundamental mis-branding is why various regulators across the globe are cracking down on Tesla marketing.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  737 Max says you're wrong. Autopilot can fail in a hurry no matter what the vehicle.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The 737 MAX crashes involved several minutes between the first indications of trouble and the crashes. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-lion-air-crash-report-boeing-737-max-20181128-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-lion-air-cras... > Lemme described "a deadly game of tag" in which the plane pointed down, the pilots countered by manually aiming the nose higher, only for the sequence to repeat about five seconds later. That happened 26 times during the 11-minute flight...
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      No bud, they had only seconds once MCAS took action during the ethiopian accident. Even if you kill power to the auto trim on the horizontal stabilizer in time, you are still nose down at low altitude and have to manually crank a wheel to undo the situation since you killed the power. You're screwed well before the crash.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Bullshit. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/what-passengers-experienced-on-the-ethiopian-airlines-flight.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/what-passengers-expe... 8:39:55 a.m.: In a clear sign that something is amiss, the autopilot turns itself off. 8:40:00 a.m.: The MCAS activates. 8:43:04 a.m.: For minutes now, the captain has been using brute physical force to pull the control yoke back in order to keep the plane’s nose from sinking. 8:43:20 a.m.: The demon awakened by the restoration of electric trim reappears. MCAS kicks back in, pushing nose steeply down. 8:43:45 a.m.: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 impacts a farm field at nearly 700 miles per hour That's more than three minutes during which properly disabling MCAS would've been successful and saved the aircraft.
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        No, the incident happened at 8:40 and by 8:43 they couldn't pull the nose up because of the horizontal trim being pushed down. That is a very short amount of time to diagnose something completely unexpected. No matter what they did after 8:43 it was too late. You are aware what trim is right? You can't just fix that by pulling on the elevators if the entire rear airfoil is directed downward.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        When’s the last time a car accident involved three minutes of advance warning of that nature? The nature of the MCAS issue is it kept firing every 5 seconds, making things progressively harder to counteract. It takes a while to get to the “can’t counteract” point.
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        It fires every 20 seconds and it takes 2 iterations before it's basically unrecoverable. However, you aren't taking into the account in the "I think I fixed it factor" after the first couple iterations. It's not like they had all 3 minutes to figure it out and fix it. A good amount of time was wasted to see if the fixes had an effect. This answer does a good job of explaining all the things that the pilot has to do in those 3 minutes. https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-pilots-on-the-Lion-Air-and-Ethiopian-Airlines-Boeing-737-MAX-flights-struggle-to-overcome-the-MCAS-systems-automatic-trim-adjustment-if-all-they-needed-to-do-was-grab-the-spinning-trim-wheel-with-their https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-pilots-on-the-Lion-Air-and...
- nopzor 7y ago
  sorry, when autopilot fails, or when atc calls, or when tcas alarms, or when any one of many other possible “complications” arise,the pilot does not have “minutes” to react. autopilot in aviation requires the pilot to be attentive, and maintain situational awareness. it’s not autonomous flying.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Car crashes tend to happen in a matter of a couple seconds at most. This is uncommon in planes. TCAS, for example: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/64847/how-much-time-do-pilots-have-to-execute-a-tcas-resolution-advisory https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/64847/how-much-... > Traffic advisories are provided 35-48 seconds out and a Resolution will be provided 20-30 seconds out. It's exceedingly rare you have 20-30 seconds warning of an impending car crash.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    You don't understand. When autopilot gives up in a plane, the PIC will respond in seconds. But anything dangerous is typically minutes or at least tens of seconds away from happening at that moment, if at all. When tesla 'autopilot' gives up in a car, the driver may have less than a second before a collision. Or worse, as we've seen with the 'tesla tries to drive into a barrier' cases, the 'autopilot' might not give up at all and just straight up try to murder you with the only safety remaining being your own attention to the situation. The fundamental problem with <99.99% reliable autonomous driving is that the driver's attention is guaranteed to stray due to lack of stimulation, and their reaction time will be at ~3s whereas the impeding crash might be only 0.3s away. In that regard, it's much better to just be manually driving and have your attention on the road. And the consumer flip side of this is, what the fuck is the point of a self driving car if it requires you to fully pay attention and be ready to intervene at any given moment on such short notice? Waymo observed that their test drivers get bored and tired really quickly when operating like that, due to the simultaneous lack of stimulation but need to be able to take over on short notice. The answer is that SAE level 2 autonomy shouldn't be labelled as self driving because it isn't. Tesla 'autopilot' is an over-marketed lane-keeping cruise control system which has virtually no chance of ever becoming SAE level 3. Tesla marketing has mislead a significant percentage of owners that they're in fact buying a level 3 system, which is why various regulators across the world are cracking down on Tesla now. Disclosure: I own Tesla stock.
- bananabreakfast 7y ago
  Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is another great misunderstanding of how any autopilot works or what it means.
- aschobel 7y ago
  If you disengage with flying or driving the consequences can be catastrophic in seconds. Fewer things to hit in the sky but you can never be complacent. Imagine playing an iPhone game while PIC and accidentally flying into the clouds? The CFIT stats are terrifying.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    Nonsense. What you're saying is true for smaller planes and 'manual' planes, but planes that have autopilot are by standards and by design required to warn the PIC of any issues with enough time to reasonably respond. There is almost never a situation where a plane on autopilot can face catastrophe in <20 seconds.
    - bumby 7y ago
      Agreeing with you and just adding support by pointing out that’s precisely why autopilot isn’t used during takeoffs and landings...because seconds do matter in those scenarios
    - tristanb 7y ago
      Plenty - an older plane and a midair collision. Bird strike. etc
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        It's extremely uncommon for a bird strike to down a plane. They cause one fatal accident every billion flight hours. Midair collisions are why we have ADS-B (even in my dad's little four-seater prop plane) and TCAS. The are also exceedingly uncommon. People driving into a ditch, pedestrian, barrier, or oncoming traffic is commonplace.
cjhopman 7y ago
Who cares what the definition is? How people interpret it is what matters. And people interpret the word to imply that the software is better than it is. IIHS did a survey of 2000 people and a driver assistance system named "Autopilot" received the most responses that overestimated the system's capabilities. For example, "Nearly half — 48% — thought it would be safe to take hands off the steering wheel when using the system." In general, about 50% more people overestimated the capabilities of Autopilot compared to the names used by industry leaders (ex. SuperCruise, ProPilot Assist). Other things users were more likely to think they could do with "AutoPilot" included texting and watching a video. See https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-studies-highlight-driver-confusion-about-automated-systems https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-studies-highlight-drive...
- bananabreakfast 7y ago
  "Who cares what the definition is?" Are you serious?? Literally everyone. Definitions are what things mean. People incorrectly interpreting a word is their own fault and are in need of education. Also, that's a terrible study to highlight. It is totally safe to take your hands off the steering wheel as long as you are ready to react.
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    > People incorrectly interpreting a word is their own fault and are in need of education. Do you honestly think Tesla called it "auto pilot" with your pedantic, "technically correct" definition in mind? Or do you think they intentionally called it "auto pilot" to invoke a sense of "hey, this thing can drive itself!". I mean, in some of their marketing they even have a whimsical blurb about how "the driver is only present to make the lawyers happy". Let's be honest here. Product naming is marketing designed to invoke certain emotions. Calling it "auto pilot" instead of "driver assist" or whatever most other manufacturers call it was very intentionally done.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      > I mean, in some of their marketing they even have a whimsical blurb about how "the driver is only present to make the lawyers happy". Exactly. You can read one piece of copy about Summon, that says "Have your finger on this button. Maintain visual contact and pay attention with vehicle at all times", and on the same page. "Have your car come to you while you are distracted by a fussing child". It's all very nudge nudge wink wink.
stefan_ 7y ago
Autopilots in aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft have very well understood failure modes. Tesla Autopilot fails dead, whatever doesn't fit into a neat neural network label box is straight up rammed blind.
ceejayoz 7y ago
There's the "a pilot would know this, and have been heavily trained in its limitations and usage" definition, and there's the layperson understanding of things. People think autopilots do a lot more than they actually do, which is part of the problem with Tesla's naming. They probably should've called it "assisted cruise" or "driver assist" or something, but that's less sexy on the marketing side. It doesn't help that their marketing pages for Autopilot have done a clever job of blurring the line between what's currently implemented and what's aspirational. https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot has a giant header titled "Full Self-Driving Capability". You have to read more closely to see the big caveats.
- mnd999 7y ago
  Autopilots on aircraft do a lot, including automatic landing where necessary (fog etc.). What they don’t do, is control the plane on the ground. There is no autopilot on the taxiway and that is what Tesla’s are trying to do.
  - Gwypaas 7y ago
    No point comparing aircraft taxing to cars. The taxiway is a very well defined environment with the tower controlling all movements. The only reason it isn't automated is because there's no monetary gain in doing so, the people you are paying is still sitting around for the same amount of time.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      And the worst taxiways are still better maintained|lit|painted than even most of the best roads.
Blaz3kovski 7y ago
Wikipedia for word definitions... really? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/autopilot https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/autopilo... "a device that keeps aircraft, spacecraft, and ships moving in a particular direction without human involvement" Either way, I think the wording causes people to trust it too much.

by xxgreg 7y ago

missosoup 7y ago

When autopilot fails, the PIC has minutes to take controls and avert whatever bad thing might happen. When Tesla 'autopilot' fails the driver might have less than a second to take controls and avoid collision. This fundamental mis-branding is why various regulators across the globe are cracking down on Tesla marketing.

blackflame7000 7y ago
737 Max says you're wrong. Autopilot can fail in a hurry no matter what the vehicle.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The 737 MAX crashes involved several minutes between the first indications of trouble and the crashes. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-lion-air-crash-report-boeing-737-max-20181128-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-lion-air-cras... > Lemme described "a deadly game of tag" in which the plane pointed down, the pilots countered by manually aiming the nose higher, only for the sequence to repeat about five seconds later. That happened 26 times during the 11-minute flight...
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    No bud, they had only seconds once MCAS took action during the ethiopian accident. Even if you kill power to the auto trim on the horizontal stabilizer in time, you are still nose down at low altitude and have to manually crank a wheel to undo the situation since you killed the power. You're screwed well before the crash.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Bullshit. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/what-passengers-experienced-on-the-ethiopian-airlines-flight.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/what-passengers-expe... 8:39:55 a.m.: In a clear sign that something is amiss, the autopilot turns itself off. 8:40:00 a.m.: The MCAS activates. 8:43:04 a.m.: For minutes now, the captain has been using brute physical force to pull the control yoke back in order to keep the plane’s nose from sinking. 8:43:20 a.m.: The demon awakened by the restoration of electric trim reappears. MCAS kicks back in, pushing nose steeply down. 8:43:45 a.m.: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 impacts a farm field at nearly 700 miles per hour That's more than three minutes during which properly disabling MCAS would've been successful and saved the aircraft.
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        No, the incident happened at 8:40 and by 8:43 they couldn't pull the nose up because of the horizontal trim being pushed down. That is a very short amount of time to diagnose something completely unexpected. No matter what they did after 8:43 it was too late. You are aware what trim is right? You can't just fix that by pulling on the elevators if the entire rear airfoil is directed downward.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        When’s the last time a car accident involved three minutes of advance warning of that nature? The nature of the MCAS issue is it kept firing every 5 seconds, making things progressively harder to counteract. It takes a while to get to the “can’t counteract” point.
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        It fires every 20 seconds and it takes 2 iterations before it's basically unrecoverable. However, you aren't taking into the account in the "I think I fixed it factor" after the first couple iterations. It's not like they had all 3 minutes to figure it out and fix it. A good amount of time was wasted to see if the fixes had an effect. This answer does a good job of explaining all the things that the pilot has to do in those 3 minutes. https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-pilots-on-the-Lion-Air-and-Ethiopian-Airlines-Boeing-737-MAX-flights-struggle-to-overcome-the-MCAS-systems-automatic-trim-adjustment-if-all-they-needed-to-do-was-grab-the-spinning-trim-wheel-with-their https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-pilots-on-the-Lion-Air-and...
nopzor 7y ago
sorry, when autopilot fails, or when atc calls, or when tcas alarms, or when any one of many other possible “complications” arise,the pilot does not have “minutes” to react. autopilot in aviation requires the pilot to be attentive, and maintain situational awareness. it’s not autonomous flying.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Car crashes tend to happen in a matter of a couple seconds at most. This is uncommon in planes. TCAS, for example: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/64847/how-much-time-do-pilots-have-to-execute-a-tcas-resolution-advisory https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/64847/how-much-... > Traffic advisories are provided 35-48 seconds out and a Resolution will be provided 20-30 seconds out. It's exceedingly rare you have 20-30 seconds warning of an impending car crash.
- missosoup 7y ago
  You don't understand. When autopilot gives up in a plane, the PIC will respond in seconds. But anything dangerous is typically minutes or at least tens of seconds away from happening at that moment, if at all. When tesla 'autopilot' gives up in a car, the driver may have less than a second before a collision. Or worse, as we've seen with the 'tesla tries to drive into a barrier' cases, the 'autopilot' might not give up at all and just straight up try to murder you with the only safety remaining being your own attention to the situation. The fundamental problem with <99.99% reliable autonomous driving is that the driver's attention is guaranteed to stray due to lack of stimulation, and their reaction time will be at ~3s whereas the impeding crash might be only 0.3s away. In that regard, it's much better to just be manually driving and have your attention on the road. And the consumer flip side of this is, what the fuck is the point of a self driving car if it requires you to fully pay attention and be ready to intervene at any given moment on such short notice? Waymo observed that their test drivers get bored and tired really quickly when operating like that, due to the simultaneous lack of stimulation but need to be able to take over on short notice. The answer is that SAE level 2 autonomy shouldn't be labelled as self driving because it isn't. Tesla 'autopilot' is an over-marketed lane-keeping cruise control system which has virtually no chance of ever becoming SAE level 3. Tesla marketing has mislead a significant percentage of owners that they're in fact buying a level 3 system, which is why various regulators across the world are cracking down on Tesla now. Disclosure: I own Tesla stock.
bananabreakfast 7y ago
Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is another great misunderstanding of how any autopilot works or what it means.
aschobel 7y ago
If you disengage with flying or driving the consequences can be catastrophic in seconds. Fewer things to hit in the sky but you can never be complacent. Imagine playing an iPhone game while PIC and accidentally flying into the clouds? The CFIT stats are terrifying.
- missosoup 7y ago
  Nonsense. What you're saying is true for smaller planes and 'manual' planes, but planes that have autopilot are by standards and by design required to warn the PIC of any issues with enough time to reasonably respond. There is almost never a situation where a plane on autopilot can face catastrophe in <20 seconds.
  - bumby 7y ago
    Agreeing with you and just adding support by pointing out that’s precisely why autopilot isn’t used during takeoffs and landings...because seconds do matter in those scenarios
  - tristanb 7y ago
    Plenty - an older plane and a midair collision. Bird strike. etc
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      It's extremely uncommon for a bird strike to down a plane. They cause one fatal accident every billion flight hours. Midair collisions are why we have ADS-B (even in my dad's little four-seater prop plane) and TCAS. The are also exceedingly uncommon. People driving into a ditch, pedestrian, barrier, or oncoming traffic is commonplace.

cjhopman 7y ago

Who cares what the definition is? How people interpret it is what matters. And people interpret the word to imply that the software is better than it is. IIHS did a survey of 2000 people and a driver assistance system named "Autopilot" received the most responses that overestimated the system's capabilities. For example, "Nearly half — 48% — thought it would be safe to take hands off the steering wheel when using the system." In general, about 50% more people overestimated the capabilities of Autopilot compared to the names used by industry leaders (ex. SuperCruise, ProPilot Assist). Other things users were more likely to think they could do with "AutoPilot" included texting and watching a video. See https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-studies-highlight-driver-confusion-about-automated-systems https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-studies-highlight-drive...

bananabreakfast 7y ago
"Who cares what the definition is?" Are you serious?? Literally everyone. Definitions are what things mean. People incorrectly interpreting a word is their own fault and are in need of education. Also, that's a terrible study to highlight. It is totally safe to take your hands off the steering wheel as long as you are ready to react.
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  > People incorrectly interpreting a word is their own fault and are in need of education. Do you honestly think Tesla called it "auto pilot" with your pedantic, "technically correct" definition in mind? Or do you think they intentionally called it "auto pilot" to invoke a sense of "hey, this thing can drive itself!". I mean, in some of their marketing they even have a whimsical blurb about how "the driver is only present to make the lawyers happy". Let's be honest here. Product naming is marketing designed to invoke certain emotions. Calling it "auto pilot" instead of "driver assist" or whatever most other manufacturers call it was very intentionally done.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    > I mean, in some of their marketing they even have a whimsical blurb about how "the driver is only present to make the lawyers happy". Exactly. You can read one piece of copy about Summon, that says "Have your finger on this button. Maintain visual contact and pay attention with vehicle at all times", and on the same page. "Have your car come to you while you are distracted by a fussing child". It's all very nudge nudge wink wink.

stefan_ 7y ago

Autopilots in aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft have very well understood failure modes. Tesla Autopilot fails dead, whatever doesn't fit into a neat neural network label box is straight up rammed blind.

ceejayoz 7y ago

There's the "a pilot would know this, and have been heavily trained in its limitations and usage" definition, and there's the layperson understanding of things. People think autopilots do a lot more than they actually do, which is part of the problem with Tesla's naming. They probably should've called it "assisted cruise" or "driver assist" or something, but that's less sexy on the marketing side. It doesn't help that their marketing pages for Autopilot have done a clever job of blurring the line between what's currently implemented and what's aspirational. https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot has a giant header titled "Full Self-Driving Capability". You have to read more closely to see the big caveats.

mnd999 7y ago
Autopilots on aircraft do a lot, including automatic landing where necessary (fog etc.). What they don’t do, is control the plane on the ground. There is no autopilot on the taxiway and that is what Tesla’s are trying to do.
- Gwypaas 7y ago
  No point comparing aircraft taxing to cars. The taxiway is a very well defined environment with the tower controlling all movements. The only reason it isn't automated is because there's no monetary gain in doing so, the people you are paying is still sitting around for the same amount of time.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    And the worst taxiways are still better maintained|lit|painted than even most of the best roads.

Blaz3kovski 7y ago

Wikipedia for word definitions... really? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/autopilot https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/autopilo... "a device that keeps aircraft, spacecraft, and ships moving in a particular direction without human involvement" Either way, I think the wording causes people to trust it too much.