Don't text and autopilot on level 3, which is a nascent technology. An engineer should know better. Wonder why a level 3 is allowed to market as an 'autopilot'.
Maaaaybe? I'm not a hydraulic engineer and won't pretend to be one. So I hire plumbers when things go wrong. If they screw up, I don't tend to blame myself though. I think the same logic would apply to the deceased.
While this is somewhat callous, if this engineer had taken that seriously he would still be alive.
Are companies bound to only selling failsafe products? Of course not, we'd never get anything done.
I do find it somewhat immoral that Tesla are using their customers as beta testers for this, but nobody has been forced into this. Nobody is forced to use Autopilot.
If a Tesla was a bespoke machine, I'd have no issues. But they know that if they position a feature and posture just-so-and-so, a certain fraction of their customers will get it "the wrong way". What did they do to alleviate this?
Nothing, in my not so humble opinion.
His inability to anticipate the system's caveat that led to his death is a testament to the unpredictability (from the user's perspective) of the vehicle's behavior.
The argument I have heard (Which I disagree with) is that "Autopilots" in aviation (where the term comes from) does not mean "You can go to sleep" but still needs constant monitoring.
Therefore calling this "Autopilot" is technically correct and therefore accurate.
My argument that the technical definition and the definition known by the general public (Which seems to be closer to the sleepy-time definition) is different enough that calling it "Autopilot" is dangerously misleading.