While I think autopilot type things can be much better than humans, so far the data I've seen doesn't make it possible for me to make a fair judgement on how good/bad it is.
In any case the point remains: you cannot just roll out updates to something safety critical like that. You need a lot of careful work to ensure the update is better than the old in all ways, and that nothing can go wrong.
Oh no no no, this is not accurate at all. I’ve used Autopilot over 60k miles across the entire US, even in the worst of weather through steep mountain grades at night at speeds up to 85mph (both the Rockies and TN/KY/NC). I disagree with your assessment. It has occasional disengagements during challenging scenes (road lines disappear suddenly, heavy construction causing sharp lane changes) but is an extremely robust system overall.
Your average human’s driving ability is not so great, in comparison.
Humans don't have them very often. We might get things wrong, but we don't disengage in the same way. (humans do sometimes die at the wheel of course, and in general are not good drivers)
Of course throwing anything to humans only will skew the data against humans.
I'm guessing that high drivers account for at most a sliver of incidents, but moreover, I don't see the purpose in comparing autopilot to only the best drivers. If someone who would otherwise drive high uses autopilot, isn't that an improvement? If someone who would otherwise text while driving uses autopilot, isn't that an improvement? If someone who is just a worse driver than autopilot uses autopilot, isn't that an improvement?
I already know humans are bad drivers, but autopilot is a big unknown.
> autopilot is a big unknown
We really just need to know whether Teslas get into more accidents or more severe accidents than other vehicles (modulo some adjusting for demographic differences among drivers). If Teslas contribute to fewer/less-severe accidents, then it demonstrates that they're safer overall. Whether they get there via autopilot or other means is an implementation detail. In any case, Tesla isn't just going to ship unsafe software because it would destroy their brand (every Tesla incident gets 1000x more scrutiny than other brands).