Humans Not Ready for Primetime
by Miki Saxon
It’s not just self-driving or any of the other “DDIY (don’t do it yourself) tech that isn’t ready for primetime.
It’s humans.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system was one of the probable causes of a fatal 2018 crash into a concrete barrier. In addition, the safety board said the driver was playing a mobile game while using Autopilot before the crash, and investigators also determined he was overly confident in Autopilot’s capabilities.
“Overly confident,” huh. Well, duh.
Who ever heard of a human who wasn’t, at the least, confident that the tech they spent their money, especially expensive tech, wouldn’t do what they expected.
“In this crash we saw an over-reliance on technology, we saw distraction, we saw a lack of policy prohibiting cell phone use while driving, and we saw infrastructure failures, which, when combined, led to this tragic loss,” NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said at the end of the hearing on Tuesday. “We urge Tesla to continue to work on improving their Autopilot technology and for NHTSA to fulfill its oversight responsibility to ensure that corrective action is taken where necessary. It’s time to stop enabling drivers in any partially automated vehicle to pretend that they have driverless cars.”
Even driverless cars tell drivers to stay alert, as do “Autopilot.”
Of course, doctors have been telling people to eat more veggies for decades and you know how well that’s worked.
Say the word “auto” to anyone and they will hear “you don’t have to do anything, X does it for you.”
Real pilots know better.
Image credit: Automobile Italia
