Tesla braces for its first trial involving Autopilot fatality::Tesla Inc is set to defend itself for the first time at trial against allegations that failure of its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to death, in what will likely be a major test of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s assertions about the technology.
I think it’s fine at the level where you are there and ready to take control, but you need to be paying attention still. Humans aren’t flawless and we shouldn’t expect our automated systems to be either. This doesn’t excuse Tesla, because they’ve been marketing it as something it’s not for a long time now. They’re driver assist features, not self driving features. It can keep you in a lane and maintain speed well, but you shouldn’t fully trust it. If it’s better than humans at some tasks, it should be used for those regardless of if it will fail at it sometimes. People shouldn’t be lied to and convinced it’s more than it is though.
I actually think that the less a driver has to do, the worse they’ll be at reacting when a situation does come up.
If I’m actually driving and someone, say, runs out in front of me, I’ll slam on the brakes. I’ve had this happen, actually - it was scary as hell because my brain froze up, but…fortunately for us and the guy, my foot still knew what to do, and we stopped in time.
But if I’m sitting in the seat, just monitoring, not actively doing something, my attention is much more likely to wander, and when that incident happens, my reaction time is likely going to be a LOT slower, because I have to “mode shift” back into operating a car, whereas I was already in that mode in the incident above. I don’t think the manufacturers are adequately considering this factor.
(I recognize this might not be a perfect example with automatic brakes, but I think the point is clear.)
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