Manjoo is normally somewhat reliable but from time to time he heads off on some political bent. Here he seems like he wants to believe. Okay. The flip side is that the Jalopnik article is kind of a Debby Downer of a piece that wants to obsess about the official meaning of words like "self-driving." Who died and made the Jalopnik author in charge of that word?
I'd argue the nuance of what it means to be L2 self-driving is rather important. I didn't read anything in the Jalopnik essay that mischaracterizes what L2 means:
The issue the Jalopnik article dances around is that this is how a large number of people think about L2 autonomous vehicles or “self-driving cars” - just sit down, tune out, enjoy the trip. This isn’t the fault of these people, nor is it Manjoo’s fault. It’s the fault of the automobile industry, who are pushing features that encourage users to pay less attention and be less alert. NTSB and other regulators are so far behind on this that these features have become endemic is new vehicles, and nothing short of a mass recall will reduce the risks of having them share the road with drivers who have two hands on the wheel and two eyes on the road.