> Is it, though? Autopilot has never in the history of those systems meant hands off controls, attention off driving. Pilots with their autopilots on in airplanes are still flying and watching gauges.

You are correct about the history of autopilot systems in planes, but when it comes to mass communication technically correct is not necessarily the best kind of correct. I wouldn't assume most people are aware of how autopilot systems work in planes.

Edit: just to make it clear, I don't believe this accident was caused by any confusion about the name. Rather, as pointed out by others in this discussion, I think the fact that the system works great for long stretches (some say they never experienced any problems) makes it exceedingly hard for drivers to remain alert. The brain's optimization tendencies are so strong that I think systems relying on people to stay alert when the action-effect-evaluation feedback loop is broken are inherently unsafe. My point is that with suboptimal messaging, Tesla is making it harder for themselves to keep the public on their side when tragedies like this occur.