The article seems to extrapolate that Tesla has failed in autonomous driving because it removed some lines from its Autopilot page. It's still very much in progress and progress is routinely confirmed by the company. Musk is known for blowing timelines but they do get delivered.

When it talks about "old approach" I'm again confused. No one else crowd sources driving data from a real world fleet. They have a unique unsupervised learning datasource from shadowing drivers.

As for attentiveness. I don't see how drivers not paying attention is any different to mobile phone use. Currently Autopilot is very clear on telling at every chance its an assistant. Saying it will kill people is like blaming phones for drivers texting while driving and getting killed. These people die because they are breaking the law and not in control of their vehicle.