[hunterb123]

The tractor is still driving on a pre-programmed GPS route.

To avoid a semantics debate, I'll agree for a brief moment the AI is "driving" the tractor to avoid an object and get back on the pre-programmed route.

[lkois]

Self driving encompasses a bunch of things. Obstacle detection is one. Vehicle control, including micro adjustments, is one. Path planning is another one.

GPS is one way of doing one part of self driving. But it's ALL self driving

[hunterb123]

A pre-planned route != self-driving (in my opinion).

I say that because it's not driving itself, it's driving a route you plotted or recorded.

You can't take that same tractor and have it work on your neighbors pasture as-is, it has to be programmed.

But again, this is getting into a semantics debate. Personally I'd prefer to differentiate using autonomous and automated, self-driving is too ambiguous.

[KyeRussell]

If I’m driving a car, and hit a brick wall that someone’s put in the middle of the road, it’s inarguable that this is a failure of my driving. There are no hairs to split here.

[akiselev]

Agreed. It will always be pre-programmed GPS because it’s the only way for a tractor to get an absolute position and heading without a star tracker and a sophisticated dead reckoning system (expensive gyros and accelerometers) or an electronic perimeter.

Tractors don’t sit idle all of the time, the owners swap out tractor attachments so their “user experience” depends on handling the transition between manual driving and automatic operation, even if that UX is limited to “too far from first waypoint, try again.”