That's how it used to be. In the past, "autopilot" was used by laymen to describe a vehicle control system that could safely drive itself (in contrast to cruise

That's how it used to be. In the past, "autopilot" was used by laymen to describe a vehicle control system that could safely drive itself (in contrast to cruise control, which was more limited). For example, in the punchline to this chain letter from 1993: > [A man] was driving along in his motor home. He turned on his ‘cruise control’. Apparently misunderstanding the function of ‘cruise control’, he then went into the back of the motor home. The motor home drove off the road and crashed. Apparently he did not realize that ‘cruise control’ is not ‘autopilot.’ This story is apocryphal, but it illustrates that the popular understanding of 'autopilot' for road vehicles was full self-driving. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-uncontrol/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-uncontrol/