8 ms·

Little bit of a tangent here, but I've always hated the fact that Tesla calls its assisted driving thingy "autopilot", which clearly implies complete autonomy,

by tronje 10y ago

Little bit of a tangent here, but I've always hated the fact that Tesla calls its assisted driving thingy "autopilot", which clearly implies complete autonomy, while still requiring a person to stay alert and intervene at a moment's notice. What Google is trying to do is an actual autopilot, which is much more difficult, I suppose.

spullara 10y ago
Autopilot is accurate but most people don't know wat a plane's autopilot does.
- Xylakant 10y ago
  A plane autopilot is supposed to be capable of flying the plane unattended and handing over control in an orderly, controlled fashion before critical problems arise [1]. A ships autopilot is expected to do the same. The same should be expected from a car autopilot. The fact that the environment is much much simpler for planes and ships doesn't change the fundamental expectation. As long as car autopilots are not capable of fulfilling the expectation that they can autonomously and safely control a car in a given real-worlds environment with other participant they should not be marketed as autopilots. They're driving assist programs. [1] there are examples where this did not happen, but they're considered a failure.
  - danielsju6 10y ago
    A plane's auto-pilot maintains bearing, altitude, and speed—seems pretty similar to "lane assist" / tesla-autopilot to me. Some can land, in optimal conditions, but can't taxi.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Landings are also mostly automated just through a different system(s) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland
  - skybrian 10y ago
    As far as I know there isn't any autopilot that can fly a plane unattended unless you are flying on instruments. Collisions are avoided by relying on the air traffic control system knowing where all the planes are scheduled to be. (Plus plenty of backup warning systems.) You can still use an autopilot when flying visually but then it's up to you to watch for traffic. This is using it like cruise control.
    - assface 10y ago
      > As far as I know there isn't any autopilot that can fly a plane unattended CMU is working on this (seriously).
    - Xylakant 10y ago
      > Collisions are avoided by relying on the air traffic control system knowing where all the planes are scheduled to be. (Plus plenty of backup warning systems.) Yes, perfectly fine. If Teslas autopilot can rely on external traffic control to provide that information, call it autopilot. As long as it can't don't.
  - grahamburger 10y ago
    Have you tried Tesla's autopilot? It's not far off from your description.
    - mortehu 10y ago
      I haven't. As I understand it, it basically doesn't work at all in city traffic? Like going across Manhattan on 59th street?
      - kmonsen 10y ago
        I can't detect red lights unless the car in front of you stopped for one. So not really.
      - grahamburger 10y ago
        That seems roughly equivalent to taxiing in a plane, something which isn't handled by a plane's autopilot. After using it, it feels very intuitive to understand what it can and can't handle, and it does degrade very gracefully (beeps at you and says 'take steering wheel to maintain speed' if it starts to get confused.) It works very much how I would have expected knowing nothing more than the name.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  For one thing a plane's autopilot doesn't automatically avoid obstacles.
  - jedmeyers 10y ago
    There are other systems on the plane (TCAS, ATC communications) that provide information about conflicting traffic. Does Tesla provide those? Will there be enough time to react if it did?
    - FabHK 10y ago
      There are far fewer obstacles in the air than on the ground. If you put a plane on autopilot and then go read a book for some hours, most likely nothing bad is going to happen (particularly on IFR, but even on VFR, realistically). Tesla's autopilot is more advanced than aircraft autopilots, I'd say, yet more dangerous (for now) because of all these darned cars and trucks and pedestrians. In that sense, "Autopilot" was an unfortunate and overly ambitious name.
- detaro 10y ago
  But a technically very similar set of features results in a vastly different user experience. A driver with a Tesla autopilot has a way smaller margin of error and needs to react a lot quicker once the autopilot encounters a situation it can't handle. Flying planes generally have way larger error margins, and a lot of effort goes into making sure they are nicely separated from traffic and obstacles (and when they come close, it's known early and the pilots can get ready to take over). Until we have highways with similar traffic control cars can't match that without a lot more intelligence.
fastball 10y ago
Nope. Autopilot (before Tesla) is a feature on modern aircraft. If you'll notice, aircraft always have an attentive person behind the wheel (if it's a commercial flight, two). A plane can fly itself under normal conditions (highways for Tesla) and many can land themselves now (Model S can park / summon feature). Autopilot couldn't be more apt.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  The environments, errorr tolerances, and required sensing capabilities are so vastly different that no comparison is apt.
  - jedmeyers 10y ago
    TCAS Resolution Advisory will give an attentive pilot a good 5 seconds to react in the worst case. How much time does a Tesla 'pilot' have in case of "oh, crap, there is a truck stopped 20 feet in front of you that I failed to detect at highway speed. Now you drive!"?
    - smileysteve 10y ago
      > TCAS Resolution Advisory will give an attentive pilot a good 5 seconds > "oh, crap, there is a truck stopped 20 feet in front of you that I failed to detect at highway speed. To appreciate your differences in measurement. 5 seconds in a plane is something about a mile away. A high performance car can still stop from 60-0 at 110ft; which is about 1 second. In context of time; it takes at least .7 second for the human to respond. (The car or terrain monitoring autopilot can react in <.1 s; which means if the car sees the obstacle at 110 feet away it can stop in time, while, if a car pulls out in the highway in front of a human it would take closer to 200ft to stop.)
      - jedmeyers 10y ago
        > The car or terrain monitoring autopilot can react in <.1 s; which means if the car sees the obstacle at 110 feet away it can stop in time What happens if the driver expects the car to react upon seeing the obstacle but it fails to do so? Will the driver have enough of the remaining time to react?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
skybrian 10y ago
The irony is that people think autopilots work this way but they don't. A simple one might just keep the plane flying in a straight line. So "autopilot" is a better metaphor for what Tesla is doing than what Google is doing. When flying on instruments, air traffic control keeps planes apart. It's up to the pilot to program the autopilot correctly. (There are other collision avoidance systems but planes can fly on instruments without relying on them.) But in the end they're not really comparable. Collision avoidance for airplanes is a different problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot
- afterburner 10y ago
  They're toying with public perception and they know it.
  - dmix 10y ago
    The public's perception and 'common sense' understanding of technology is sadly very limited. So it wouldn't be difficult to 'toy' with it. But I don't think that's the point here. As long as they are telling people they have to be alert while using autopilot I don't see a problem with it. The 'common sense' assumption then would be that autopilot = assisted driving rather being an autonomous self-driving car. Therefore Google et al shouldn't be using the term autopilot when they mean autonomous self-driving vehicle. Eventually as this tech becomes wide-spread the distinction will become common knowledge to people. This is mostly just semantics... context is everything. The important thing is preventing people from dying. Which means looking beyond marketing material to educate people.
    - darawk 10y ago
      They're telling people that essentially in the fine print. If they wanted to be transparent about it, they'd have called it something like 'Assisted driving', which unambiguously requires your attention. 'Autopilot' could mean assisted and it could mean full autonomy.
      - 10y ago
ProAm 10y ago
All marketing is a thinly veiled lie.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  Enormous amounts of money are spent on product awareness, with no deception at all.
michaeldunworth 10y ago
I know what you mean, but I think I've got to disagree. The general sense of "Autopilot" implies the same level of sophistication that other vehicles have that use "Autopilot"... Boats use it for mid course, as do planes, now having cars using it. It won't park, and it's not going to get out the carpark and onto the road, but it'll take over once the course is set and there's less technicalities on direction. I think it's a fair call using this term.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  There's a mismatch between the way professionals and the public use the term 'autopilot'. Pilots know it's an aid, not a turn-key solution. The public misses that important detail. Since Tesla must understand this effect, I resent them using this a marketing term since they can exploit the misunderstanding while not being technically wrong. By the way, I'm pretty sure completely autonomous parallel parking is already available retail.
  - gr3yh47 10y ago
    > By the way, I'm pretty sure completely autonomous parallel parking is already available retail. it is. Tesla was also beta-testing (last I saw a few months ago anyway) completely autonomous head-in/rear-in parking including finding the spot in a crowded parking lot.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    >>Since Tesla must understand this effect, I resent them using this a marketing term since they can exploit the misunderstanding while not being technically wrong. I resent that you're accusing Tesla of intentionally misleading the public on what the feature does. The car issues very obvious and repetitive warnings to the driver to explain the shortcomings of the technology and what the driver has to do to compensate. If the driver fails to act in accordance with the warnings, the car turns off the feature. I mean, I dunno. To me, it looks as if Tesla has already gone above and beyond to communicate accurately, and the main reason they're pushing things even further is because of the intense media scrutiny on Tesla accidents (which the incumbent manufacturers probably love).
nothis 10y ago
I think Tesla is genuinely regretting that decision already.
EpicEng 10y ago
I think the problem is more to do with your erroneous definition of 'autopilot'

by tronje 10y ago

spullara 10y ago

Autopilot is accurate but most people don't know wat a plane's autopilot does.

Xylakant 10y ago
A plane autopilot is supposed to be capable of flying the plane unattended and handing over control in an orderly, controlled fashion before critical problems arise [1]. A ships autopilot is expected to do the same. The same should be expected from a car autopilot. The fact that the environment is much much simpler for planes and ships doesn't change the fundamental expectation. As long as car autopilots are not capable of fulfilling the expectation that they can autonomously and safely control a car in a given real-worlds environment with other participant they should not be marketed as autopilots. They're driving assist programs. [1] there are examples where this did not happen, but they're considered a failure.
- danielsju6 10y ago
  A plane's auto-pilot maintains bearing, altitude, and speed—seems pretty similar to "lane assist" / tesla-autopilot to me. Some can land, in optimal conditions, but can't taxi.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Landings are also mostly automated just through a different system(s) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland
- skybrian 10y ago
  As far as I know there isn't any autopilot that can fly a plane unattended unless you are flying on instruments. Collisions are avoided by relying on the air traffic control system knowing where all the planes are scheduled to be. (Plus plenty of backup warning systems.) You can still use an autopilot when flying visually but then it's up to you to watch for traffic. This is using it like cruise control.
  - assface 10y ago
    > As far as I know there isn't any autopilot that can fly a plane unattended CMU is working on this (seriously).
  - Xylakant 10y ago
    > Collisions are avoided by relying on the air traffic control system knowing where all the planes are scheduled to be. (Plus plenty of backup warning systems.) Yes, perfectly fine. If Teslas autopilot can rely on external traffic control to provide that information, call it autopilot. As long as it can't don't.
- grahamburger 10y ago
  Have you tried Tesla's autopilot? It's not far off from your description.
  - mortehu 10y ago
    I haven't. As I understand it, it basically doesn't work at all in city traffic? Like going across Manhattan on 59th street?
    - kmonsen 10y ago
      I can't detect red lights unless the car in front of you stopped for one. So not really.
    - grahamburger 10y ago
      That seems roughly equivalent to taxiing in a plane, something which isn't handled by a plane's autopilot. After using it, it feels very intuitive to understand what it can and can't handle, and it does degrade very gracefully (beeps at you and says 'take steering wheel to maintain speed' if it starts to get confused.) It works very much how I would have expected knowing nothing more than the name.
kalleboo 10y ago
For one thing a plane's autopilot doesn't automatically avoid obstacles.
- jedmeyers 10y ago
  There are other systems on the plane (TCAS, ATC communications) that provide information about conflicting traffic. Does Tesla provide those? Will there be enough time to react if it did?
  - FabHK 10y ago
    There are far fewer obstacles in the air than on the ground. If you put a plane on autopilot and then go read a book for some hours, most likely nothing bad is going to happen (particularly on IFR, but even on VFR, realistically). Tesla's autopilot is more advanced than aircraft autopilots, I'd say, yet more dangerous (for now) because of all these darned cars and trucks and pedestrians. In that sense, "Autopilot" was an unfortunate and overly ambitious name.
detaro 10y ago
But a technically very similar set of features results in a vastly different user experience. A driver with a Tesla autopilot has a way smaller margin of error and needs to react a lot quicker once the autopilot encounters a situation it can't handle. Flying planes generally have way larger error margins, and a lot of effort goes into making sure they are nicely separated from traffic and obstacles (and when they come close, it's known early and the pilots can get ready to take over). Until we have highways with similar traffic control cars can't match that without a lot more intelligence.

fastball 10y ago

Nope. Autopilot (before Tesla) is a feature on modern aircraft. If you'll notice, aircraft always have an attentive person behind the wheel (if it's a commercial flight, two). A plane can fly itself under normal conditions (highways for Tesla) and many can land themselves now (Model S can park / summon feature). Autopilot couldn't be more apt.

throwaway729 10y ago
The environments, errorr tolerances, and required sensing capabilities are so vastly different that no comparison is apt.
- jedmeyers 10y ago
  TCAS Resolution Advisory will give an attentive pilot a good 5 seconds to react in the worst case. How much time does a Tesla 'pilot' have in case of "oh, crap, there is a truck stopped 20 feet in front of you that I failed to detect at highway speed. Now you drive!"?
  - smileysteve 10y ago
    > TCAS Resolution Advisory will give an attentive pilot a good 5 seconds > "oh, crap, there is a truck stopped 20 feet in front of you that I failed to detect at highway speed. To appreciate your differences in measurement. 5 seconds in a plane is something about a mile away. A high performance car can still stop from 60-0 at 110ft; which is about 1 second. In context of time; it takes at least .7 second for the human to respond. (The car or terrain monitoring autopilot can react in <.1 s; which means if the car sees the obstacle at 110 feet away it can stop in time, while, if a car pulls out in the highway in front of a human it would take closer to 200ft to stop.)
    - jedmeyers 10y ago
      > The car or terrain monitoring autopilot can react in <.1 s; which means if the car sees the obstacle at 110 feet away it can stop in time What happens if the driver expects the car to react upon seeing the obstacle but it fails to do so? Will the driver have enough of the remaining time to react?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

skybrian 10y ago

The irony is that people think autopilots work this way but they don't. A simple one might just keep the plane flying in a straight line. So "autopilot" is a better metaphor for what Tesla is doing than what Google is doing. When flying on instruments, air traffic control keeps planes apart. It's up to the pilot to program the autopilot correctly. (There are other collision avoidance systems but planes can fly on instruments without relying on them.) But in the end they're not really comparable. Collision avoidance for airplanes is a different problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

afterburner 10y ago
They're toying with public perception and they know it.
- dmix 10y ago
  The public's perception and 'common sense' understanding of technology is sadly very limited. So it wouldn't be difficult to 'toy' with it. But I don't think that's the point here. As long as they are telling people they have to be alert while using autopilot I don't see a problem with it. The 'common sense' assumption then would be that autopilot = assisted driving rather being an autonomous self-driving car. Therefore Google et al shouldn't be using the term autopilot when they mean autonomous self-driving vehicle. Eventually as this tech becomes wide-spread the distinction will become common knowledge to people. This is mostly just semantics... context is everything. The important thing is preventing people from dying. Which means looking beyond marketing material to educate people.
  - darawk 10y ago
    They're telling people that essentially in the fine print. If they wanted to be transparent about it, they'd have called it something like 'Assisted driving', which unambiguously requires your attention. 'Autopilot' could mean assisted and it could mean full autonomy.
    - 10y ago

ProAm 10y ago

All marketing is a thinly veiled lie.

Dylan16807 10y ago
Enormous amounts of money are spent on product awareness, with no deception at all.

michaeldunworth 10y ago

I know what you mean, but I think I've got to disagree. The general sense of "Autopilot" implies the same level of sophistication that other vehicles have that use "Autopilot"... Boats use it for mid course, as do planes, now having cars using it. It won't park, and it's not going to get out the carpark and onto the road, but it'll take over once the course is set and there's less technicalities on direction. I think it's a fair call using this term.

robotresearcher 10y ago
There's a mismatch between the way professionals and the public use the term 'autopilot'. Pilots know it's an aid, not a turn-key solution. The public misses that important detail. Since Tesla must understand this effect, I resent them using this a marketing term since they can exploit the misunderstanding while not being technically wrong. By the way, I'm pretty sure completely autonomous parallel parking is already available retail.
- gr3yh47 10y ago
  > By the way, I'm pretty sure completely autonomous parallel parking is already available retail. it is. Tesla was also beta-testing (last I saw a few months ago anyway) completely autonomous head-in/rear-in parking including finding the spot in a crowded parking lot.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Since Tesla must understand this effect, I resent them using this a marketing term since they can exploit the misunderstanding while not being technically wrong. I resent that you're accusing Tesla of intentionally misleading the public on what the feature does. The car issues very obvious and repetitive warnings to the driver to explain the shortcomings of the technology and what the driver has to do to compensate. If the driver fails to act in accordance with the warnings, the car turns off the feature. I mean, I dunno. To me, it looks as if Tesla has already gone above and beyond to communicate accurately, and the main reason they're pushing things even further is because of the intense media scrutiny on Tesla accidents (which the incumbent manufacturers probably love).

nothis 10y ago

I think Tesla is genuinely regretting that decision already.

EpicEng 10y ago

I think the problem is more to do with your erroneous definition of 'autopilot'