For every tragedy, there are tragedies avoided. I can attest to a few. In the last 10,000 miles, Autopilot has: safely swerved to avoid a car that would have sideswiped me, preemptively braked after detecting the 2nd car ahead (not visible to me) had slammed on its brakes, and avoided colliding with a completely stopped vehicle in the center lane of the freeway.
And FWIW I've never felt misled about Autopilot's capabilities. I started off skeptical and it's since earned my partial trust in limited scenarios. Ironically its hiccups actually make me more attentive since, ya know, I don't want it to kill me.
I know these kinds of situations are frightening, but as long as AutoPilot is significantly safer, statistics-wise, over similar driving, it's hard to argue otherwise.
So you say. Autopilot has already been responsible (in part) for at least one death, and hasn't seemed to slow adoption or interest at all. Look at driving itself: there are all sorts of horrible accidents that we see on the side of the road, but we still get behind the wheel every day. People are very willing to accept risk for convenience.
It's perfectly reasonable for me to make a determination and offer my first hand experience about Autopilot's capabilities relative to that of my own and that of other drivers I see on the road.
Accidents might be long-tail phenomenon but driving habits are observable. Autopilot has a consistent, safe, alert demeanor on the road. It reacts to vehicles I as a driver can't as quickly see, changing situations that it would take me an extra half second or more to react to.
Compare that to the average human driver on the road - a third or more of whom you can expect to see holding a phone - and I think it's a reasonable conclusion to say it's already at least marginally better. And if we are talking about accidents, you can't deny that people are generally terrible at choosing the best possible reaction to an emergency situation that happens in the space of a few seconds.
There have been two highly-publicized Autopilot accidents, recently but only one death. And the second one didn't actually involve Autopilot, that was just the driver either being confused or scammy.
The crashes were not of a kind that Autopilot could have detected earlier. Several involved stationary objects, that Autopilot seems to intentionally ignore because it can't tell apart what's actually in the way of the car from harmless features of the surroundings that will never cause a collision. Which just goes to prove: Autopilot = glorified cruise control. You must never expect it to keep you safe.
I find, for example, in heavy stop and go traffic my car drives safer on AutoPilot than I do manually. I can get tense or fed up with stupid drivers around me causing me to drive less than ideally, while the AutoPilot just smoothly moves along, perfectly centered in the lane, never caring if the car ahead stays stopped too long, never getting flustered from being cut off.
Switching on the AutoPilot also makes me suddenly care a lot less about optimizing for that 1/10th of a second here and there. When the car’s driving, I get there when I get there. I can just relax and the traffic matters that much less.
I use autopilot daily. It drives me, on a twisty road, from my house to work with intervention when I get into town.
> how quickly might it react to a perceived obstacle?
I've had it head towards a curbed median in the middle of the road and within 10 feet swerve to the right to miss it (in a spot that I've driven by hundreds of times, but this time it kinda decided to head towards the curbed median). Auto pilot can react surprisingly quickly in a good way.
So far, for me, it has never swerved quickly towards anything. There are situations, like on blind curves in the mountains, where it doesn't know what to do. At this time, it will start beeping, showing red on the screen and try its best to keep driving: even if that means quickly heading off the road. But, it doesn't act aggressive in any way. This is what I've experienced so far.
I've had auto pilot take me, hands free, between freeway interchanges, merging, changing lanes, etc. and I'm totally amazed. At other times, it does seem to do dumb things and I wonder what it had seen to consider taking the action it took.
Even with all that, there is still a huge advantage to auto pilot. Driving with it on seems to remove >a lot< of micro adjustments that I would normally be taking. I do drive with my hand on the wheel (enough pressure so I don't get the warning messages). On long drives, I really am a lot less tired: even keeping my hand on the wheel all the time.
I also have more time to scan the road for anything going on. Looking down to see my speed, for example, (basically any action that takes my focus off the road for a second or two) is less stressful.
It is utterly amazing technology and I still can't believe it is happening while I'm alive.
Autopilot is at most evidence that human-machine systems are better than just human drivers. Throughout its history "autopilot" had many cases where the human saved its ass and quite a few where it managed to kill the human anyway.
I agree 100% with jedberg as to my own driving experience with autopilot. Works great, and I still pay complete attention because I don't want to die in a fiery crash. If you're not going to pay attention, driving a dumber car doesn't make it safer.
That would be real magic. Magic is numerous cases where Autopilot does end up avoiding accidents in otherwise mundane situations that most people don't even think about, but over time does make a big dent in the number of fatalities.
There are obviously high profile tragedies like that one, but it don't see that as evidence that autopilot technology doesn't on net make air travel much safer and more reliable.
At last some "positive news" with regards to autopilot. As much as I love the feature and it's progressiveness, I'm afraid the authorities might shut it down because of public safety concerns. Which might have some truth to it in the short term, though in the long run it almost certainly will be superior to the average human safety record.
On another note, it's interesting how often the autopilot is often blamed despite not being on. Thankfully that can easily be verified. The damage has been done nonetheless..
> where it successfully navigates the most dangerous road in America
Twistiest, maybe. Most dangerous, not even close unless you or someone driving towards you do something dumb.
Historically Autopilot's weak spots have been crappy/ambiguous road markings, low speed corners on high speed roads, and large vehicles stopped on/across the road. This video hit none of those points. The lane markings are clear, the posted limit is low, and large vehicles aren't even supposed to be there.
And FWIW I've never felt misled about Autopilot's capabilities. I started off skeptical and it's since earned my partial trust in limited scenarios. Ironically its hiccups actually make me more attentive since, ya know, I don't want it to kill me.
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