That is an aspect that is admittedly different from a car. It really depends on the phase of flight. In cruise there are rarely instances that an immediate reaction is needed. In the terminal environment though where you’re closer to the ground and other traffic it can definitely be split second.
Autopilots will incorrectly intercept approach guidance and fly through the course or altitude when you’re low to the ground or blow through the lateral course into a parallel runway’s course. That’s the most frequent failure I’ve encountered. I’ve also seen it just completely lose its mind on autoland at low altitude requiring intervention.
Point is split second decisions are needed during critical phases of flight. Driving a car on autopilot is likely going to require that level of vigilance during the entire drive unless we get highway systems that present hyper controlled environments where self-driving cars have higher reliability. This can kind of be likened to why cruise is less critical in an aircraft. You’re at high altitude, traffic is exclusively controlled by ATC (unlike low altitude where there is traffic not under ATC control), and the aircraft are all required to operate on autopilot and have collision avoidance systems where the aircraft communicate with each other (TCAS).
Aviation has dealt with the integration of these systems for the last 5 decades and the human/machine interface. There have been many failures and successes and I think it would be a great place to start for figuring out how this works with cars.
Well but it sounds like the way we started is to take all of those lessons and chuck them out the window! Don't fly airliners, but I fly a trusty Cirrus with plenty of "advanced" avionics. The fact is that during the pillot training so much of your focus is on the failure points of the automation and how to recover. How we're building this into cars makes that an almost impossibility. The domain certainly makes it challenging, and it may prove to ultimately be impossible with current tech, but the analogy to me is like we're selling "autopilot" in cars in the same way we'd sell CAT III landing equipment in an airliner if what were powering that CAT III automation was your DIY Stratus.
Autopilots will incorrectly intercept approach guidance and fly through the course or altitude when you’re low to the ground or blow through the lateral course into a parallel runway’s course. That’s the most frequent failure I’ve encountered. I’ve also seen it just completely lose its mind on autoland at low altitude requiring intervention.
Point is split second decisions are needed during critical phases of flight. Driving a car on autopilot is likely going to require that level of vigilance during the entire drive unless we get highway systems that present hyper controlled environments where self-driving cars have higher reliability. This can kind of be likened to why cruise is less critical in an aircraft. You’re at high altitude, traffic is exclusively controlled by ATC (unlike low altitude where there is traffic not under ATC control), and the aircraft are all required to operate on autopilot and have collision avoidance systems where the aircraft communicate with each other (TCAS).
Aviation has dealt with the integration of these systems for the last 5 decades and the human/machine interface. There have been many failures and successes and I think it would be a great place to start for figuring out how this works with cars.