[tass]

I’m not usually an apologist, and I’d agree with this judgement if the car was left to its own devices, but the driver of the car held his foot on the accelerator which is why it blew through those stop signs and lights.

In regards to the autopilot branding, would a reasonable person expect a plane on autopilot to fly safely if the pilot suddenly took over and pointed it at the ground?

[jrjeksjd8d]

The average person does not know how to fly a plane or what a plane autopilot does. It's a ridiculous superficial comparison. Planes have professional pilots who understand the capabilities and limits of aviation autopilot technology.

Tesla has had it both ways for ages - their stock price was based on "self-driving cars" and their liability was based on "asterisk asterisk the car cannot drive itself".

[nitinreddy88]

According to your analogy. Certified pilot = Certified driving license holder. Its not like Tesla is advertising non driving license or in eligible person can drive using Autopilot. I wonder how can you even justify your statement

[seanmcdirmid]

Autopilots in airplanes are kind of dumb (keep heading, speed, and altitude, they won’t do much anything else), which is why Tesla doesn’t use the name as branding for its full self driving software. People at least know that much.

But then again even on HN people like parent think that autopilot is the same as full self driving, when it is and always has been just smarter cruise control. The payout was for autopilot (a feature that most new cars have these days under various names), not full self driving.

[nickff]

If the average person does not know what an autopilot does, why would they expect Tesla's 'autopilot' to take such good care of them? I am reminded of a case many years ago when a man turned on the cruise control in his RV and went to the back to make himself lunch, after which the RV went off some sort of hill or cliff.

Rudimentary 'autopilots' on aircraft have existed for about a century now, and the earlier versions (before transistorization) only controlled heading and attitude (if conditions and other settings allowed it), with little indication of failure.

[Starman_Jones]

The original judgement held that the driver was 2/3 responsible, Tesla 1/3 responsible, which seems reasonable. The $243 million wasn't for causing the accident, but was a punitive amount for doing things that looked an awful lot like lying to the court and withholding evidence.

[carefree-bob]

This makes a lot of sense and makes the verdict seem reasonable, thanks for providing the context.

[Gud]

A “reasonable person” in a cockpit is not the same as a “reasonable person” behind the steering wheel.

Pilots undergo rigorous training with exam after exam they must pass.

No one is handed the keys to a Boeing 747 after some weekly evening course and an hours driving test.

[tass]

I don't mean a reasonable pilot. Would a reasonable person expect autopilot in a plane prevents a plane from crashing into something that the pilot was accelerating towards while physically overriding the controls. The claim is that autopilot should not have been able to crash even with the driver actively overriding it and accelerating into that crash.

To me, it's reasonable to assume that the "autopilot" in a car I drive (especially back in 2019) is going to defer to any input override that I provide. I wouldn't want it any other way.

[zadikian]

Not sure what "autopilot" means in a car. Is the self-parking feature called "landing gear"?