Would you make excuses for a human that did that while conscious and not in any kind of distress?
I'd be less understanding, yes.
But at this point it's presumable that the autopilot was in "distress" (avoiding a perceived issue). And when such a thing comes up, real or false, the drivers behind need to be ready to react. And several of the cars did so quite well actually. The only reason this is a dramatic incident is because of the like 5th or 6th car that hits everyone else hard.
On the other side I do not understand why this 'Autopilot' is not banned from the public roads.