> Imo, noone should be operating a vehicle in this mode at high speeds.

I think thats a bit of an overstatement. Try it.

I think there's some merit to it until the industry (or government) determines some way of establishing whether the driver is actually paying attention. Think of it like a preemptive seatbelt - Brain Computer interface maybe? Sounds like an actual use for Machine Learning (I know nothing about ML beyond toy Neural Networks, so maybe not)

It's all well and good saying the driver should pay more attention - almost treating it like a normal tech product, I suppose, but most "tech" products don't control almost a Megajoule (mental maths might be wrong but you get the idea) of kinetic energy and the lives of the occupants of both the car and any others it hits.

I'm not saying that it's an impossibility to get it right, just that it needs to be held to even higher standards than the existing engineering present in the car (and planes if I'm being honest), not Sillicon Valley. Luckily this doesn't seem to be too much the case, but it could happen - the few people I know who own Tesla's are all non-car people ("What's suspension?"), i.e. The gadget-factor of the car is definitely attractive. Tesla do seem to be doing a pretty good job, so hat's off to them so far.