[random4369]

There are two critical differences.

1: The handover latency (time from AP requesting handover to time pilot takes over) is measured in seconds to tens of seconds. AP is designed to give up a long time before any possible issues occur. Contrast this with cars on roads where the reaction times need to be in the sub-second range to avert crashes. If AP took a plane into terrain during poor visibility conditions and the pilots only got a second or two of terrain warning prior to a crash, such a crash would never be classified as pilot error on those grounds. Contrast this with self-driving cars where the autonomy frequently doesn't give up at all and the driver's awareness of the situation is the only thing to save them.

2: There are two operators on controls at all times. Recognising the limitations of human attention spans is one of but not the only reason for this being a requirement in civilian airlines.

Boeing has a whole design philosophy about making the operations of AP completely transparent to the pilots and failsafe. That means that all key controls (thrust, trim, stick, etc.) in the cockpit are physically manipulated by the AP so the pilots can see exactly what's going on. and more importantly that the controls represent the exact state of AP when the pilot takes over, so there are no unexpected sudden changes in input. The current generation of self-driving cars is a joke compared to the safety engineering that goes into AP systems.