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Comment by myko | Hacker News Reader

> the car slowed at a stop sign down to 20mph before blowing through it

Not sure if you know or not, but want to make this clear - the current Autopilot feature does NOT know how to stop at signs or lights. It really is just really good lane adherence, and even that can be sketchy (hopping lanes into oncoming traffic, sudden hard braking for no reason).

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Wow, if there was ever a perfect example of someone misunderstanding what "Autopilot" does in a manner that could have killed somebody, this is it!

Can we stop calling the Tesla driver assistance package by its inaccurate brand name? It is harmful.

And maybe Tesla shouldn't give its features brand names that are inaccurate and put lives at risk?

If only our American government regulated every car's safety features.

This is an interesting statement, because while I agree that it might be good to name it something else, the name 'autopilot' is not inaccurate. An autopilot system in an aircraft does not stop for pedestrians or stop signs. Nor does it completely fly the plane itself.

The problem is that people don't understand what an autopilot does. But that's not something that should be argued around, when it wouldn't be a big exercise to name it something else.

Someone always brings out this argument - that it's acurate in the aviation world.

But that is different from the average human, who expects the autopilot to automatically pilot the car - including stopping at stop lights and for pedestrians.

That's what I am saying. The average person is incorrect in their assumption, so the simple solution would be to change the name of the system.

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