this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
577 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
59148 readers
2006 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Who needs a driver? This car has AUTOPILOT.
But seriously, Tesla "autopilot" is nothing more than a cruise control you have to keep an eye on. Which means, it's NOT "autopilot." This technology is not ready for the real world. Sooner or later, it's going to cause a major, horrible accident, involving dozens or people. Musk has enough connections to avoid any real-world consequences but maybe enough people will get over their child-like worship of billionaires and stop treating him like he's the next Bill Gates.
Somewhat ironically, autopilot for airplanes is more less attitude/speed holding for most history. More modern systems can now autoland or follow a preprogrammed route (the flight plan plugged into the FMS), but even then changes like TCAS advisories are usually left up to the pilots to handle. Autopilots are also expected to give control to the pilots in any kind of unexpected situation.
So in a way tesla's naming here isn't so off, it's just the generic understanding of the term "autopilot" that is off somewhat. That said, their system is also not doing much more than most other level 2 ADAS systems offer.
On the other hand, Elon loves going off about Full Self Driving mode a lot, and that's absolutely bullshit.
Comercial pilots also have a lot of training, huge list of regulations and procedures for every contingency, amd a copilot to double check your work.
Tesla has dumb fuck drivers that are actively trying to find ways to kill themselves. And an Orange wedged in the steering wheel is the copilot. To trick sensors.
Maybe the latter should not be trusted with the nuance that is the "autopilot" branding.
Because 2007+ have seen an influx of new computer users, mostly using mobile devices, many of them thinking that this is how computer use looks now and that this is the future.
Now the iPhone generation (including adults and seniors who haven't used anything smarter) thinks that you can replace any expert UI with an Angry Birds like arcade on a touchscreen.
If real autopilot to be trusted were possible for airplanes now, we'd see fully automated drone swarms in all warzones and likely automated jets (not having the constraint of G-forces survivable by a human, and not requiring life support systems at all), but in real life it's still human-controlled FPV drones and human-piloted jets.
Though I think drone swarms are coming. It's, of course, important to have control over where the force is applied, but a bomb that destroys a town when you need to destroy a house is often preferable to no bomb at all.
The point was that people want magic now and believe crooks who promise them magic now. Education is the way to counter this.
I think the counter to that is that aircraft manufacturers know that the people flying their aircraft are not idiots and actually know what the autopilot button does. Meanwhile Tesla knows that the people driving their cars are idiots and don't know what the autopilot does.
In the US they let kids drive for god's sake. Sure they've passed a test but what does that mean in the real world?