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I remember having this argument with a friend. My argument was that the idea that the name Autopilot is misleading comes not from Tesla naming it wrong, it com

by atonse 8mo ago

I remember having this argument with a friend. My argument was that the idea that the name Autopilot is misleading comes not from Tesla naming it wrong, it comes from what most people think "Autopilots" on an aircraft do. (And that is probably good enough to argue in court, that it doesn't matter what's factually correct, it matters what people understand based on their knowledge) Autopilot on a Tesla historically did two things - traffic aware cruise control (keeps a gap from the car in front of you) and stays in its lane. If you tell it to, it can suggest and change lanes. In some cases, it'll also take an exit ramp. (which was called Navigate on Autopilot) Autopilots on planes roughly also do the same. They keep speed and heading, and will also change heading to follow a GPS flight plan. Pilots still take off and land the plane. (Like Tesla drivers still get you on the highway and off). Full Self Driving (to which they've now added the word "Supervised" probably from court cases but it always was quite obvious that it was supervised, you had to keep shaking the steering wheel to prove you were alert, same as with Autopilot btw), is a different AI model that even stops at traffic lights, navigates parking lots, everything. That's the true "summon my car from LA to NY" dream at least. So to answer your question, "What's the difference" – it's huge. And I think they've covered that in earlier court cases. But one could argue that maybe they should've restricted it to only highways maybe? (fewer traffic lights, no intersections), but I don't know the details of each recent crash.

roywiggins 8mo ago
Airplane "autoland" goes back a ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland
Retric 8mo ago
Autopilots do a lot more than that because flying an aircraft safely is a lot more complicated than turning a steering wheel left and right and accelerating or breaking. Tesla’s Autopilot being unable to swap from one road to another makes is way less capable than a decades old civilian autopilots which will get you to any arbitrary location as long as you have fuel. Calling the current FSD Autopilot would be overstating its capabilities, but reasonably fitting.
- beering 8mo ago
  Doesn’t basic airplane autopilot just maintain flight level, speed, and heading? What are some other things it can do?
  - Retric 8mo ago
    Recover from upsets is the big thing. Maintaining flight level, speed, and heading while upside down isn’t acceptable. Levels of safety are another consideration, car autopilot’s don’t use multiple levels of redundancy on everything because they can stop without falling out of the sky.
    - ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
      That's still massively simpler than making a self-driving car. It's trivially easy to fly a plane in straight level flight, to the extent that you don't actually need any automation at all to do it. You simply trim the aircraft to fly in the attitude you want and over a reasonable timescale it will do just that.
      - Retric 8mo ago
        > It's trivially easy to fly a plane in straight level flight, to the extent that you don't actually need any automation at all to do it. You simply trim the aircraft to fly in the attitude That seemingly shifts the difficulty from the autopilot to the airframe. But that’s not actually good enough, it doesn’t keep an aircraft flying when it’s missing a large chunk of wing for example. https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/1983-negev-mid-air-collision/ https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/1983-negev-mid-air-c... Instead, you’re talking about the happy path and if we accept the happy path as enough there’s the weekend equivalents of self driving cars built using minimal effort, however being production worthy is about more than being occasionally useful. Autopilot is difficult because you need to do several things well or people will defiantly die. Self driving cars are far more forgiving of occasional mistakes but again it’s the or people die bits that makes it difficult. Tesla isn’t actually ahead of the game, they are just willing to take more risks with their customers and the general public’s lives.

by atonse 8mo ago

roywiggins 8mo ago

Airplane "autoland" goes back a ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

Retric 8mo ago

Autopilots do a lot more than that because flying an aircraft safely is a lot more complicated than turning a steering wheel left and right and accelerating or breaking. Tesla’s Autopilot being unable to swap from one road to another makes is way less capable than a decades old civilian autopilots which will get you to any arbitrary location as long as you have fuel. Calling the current FSD Autopilot would be overstating its capabilities, but reasonably fitting.

beering 8mo ago
Doesn’t basic airplane autopilot just maintain flight level, speed, and heading? What are some other things it can do?
- Retric 8mo ago
  Recover from upsets is the big thing. Maintaining flight level, speed, and heading while upside down isn’t acceptable. Levels of safety are another consideration, car autopilot’s don’t use multiple levels of redundancy on everything because they can stop without falling out of the sky.
  - ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
    That's still massively simpler than making a self-driving car. It's trivially easy to fly a plane in straight level flight, to the extent that you don't actually need any automation at all to do it. You simply trim the aircraft to fly in the attitude you want and over a reasonable timescale it will do just that.
    - Retric 8mo ago
      > It's trivially easy to fly a plane in straight level flight, to the extent that you don't actually need any automation at all to do it. You simply trim the aircraft to fly in the attitude That seemingly shifts the difficulty from the autopilot to the airframe. But that’s not actually good enough, it doesn’t keep an aircraft flying when it’s missing a large chunk of wing for example. https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/1983-negev-mid-air-collision/ https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/1983-negev-mid-air-c... Instead, you’re talking about the happy path and if we accept the happy path as enough there’s the weekend equivalents of self driving cars built using minimal effort, however being production worthy is about more than being occasionally useful. Autopilot is difficult because you need to do several things well or people will defiantly die. Self driving cars are far more forgiving of occasional mistakes but again it’s the or people die bits that makes it difficult. Tesla isn’t actually ahead of the game, they are just willing to take more risks with their customers and the general public’s lives.