I have addressed this elsewhere in this thread, so let me just copy and paste that comment.

>To be fair this is mostly a problem with the general public's understanding of the term autopilot and not with the actual systems that have used that name before. Aeronautical autopilots would probably only be classified as level 1 or maybe level 2 [autonomy] when that term was first coined and used to describe them. Even now I am not sure if we would classify the average autopilots you find on a commercial airliner as being fully at level 4.

I don't think Tesla's naming it autopilot should have any impact on any legal discussions. I am not sure the driver should be responsible for everything that happens to the car while autopilot is engaged. However I think it is a completely fair and reasonable expectation that a driver understands what autopilot is capable of doing before they engage it. I don't think Tesla (at least through their marketing, I have heard some questionable things about their salespeople) has been misleading about that in any way. I don't have a lot of faith in people handling a Tesla responsibly if the only thing they know about autopilot is that it is named autopilot.

HN mods really don't like when you paste comments, FYI. The best way to refer to something you already wrote is a link to that comment.

Personally I think Tesla should bear some responsibility for the name. People don't know what aeronautical autopilots do and don't do. Laypeople think autopilot does the driving for you.

Yes, but when you watch documentaries about pilots in cockpits they are routinely enabling the autopilot and begin talking to each other, eating, taking notes, and doing other stuff and are not constanly looking out of the window. If you look at it from this perspective, people are comfortable to look at their phone or eat while Tesla's Autopilot is enabled.

Pilots can do that because there are no other planes in the sky on their route because some outside human is taking care of that.

It doesn't matter what it's called. People think it's autopilot, and most of the time it does drive itself. This causes people to lose attention. This has been replicated across different systems - cars, planes, trains, test equipment, etc etc etc. It's a pretty robust finding: humans need things to do if you want them to maintain attention.

As I understand, there are devices that check if you're paying attention in many autopilot systems for precisely this reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11017034