The world, particularly the US, is full of over-promised marketing that borders on outright lying.
How many products and services on the market in the US use bold names and labels to suggest or even directly state a feature that in actuality doesn't come close to the expectation?
But on the autopilot topic, I would say it is you and the general public that has deemed "autopilot" to mean something that it historically does not mean. The most common use of autopilot is in aircraft, and in that domain it can be very crude and simple or highly automated. But with the exception of advanced autopilot systems in modern commercial jets, typical autopilot system merely hold a set heading, pitch, and level.
Even the FAA says this: "While the autopilot relieves you from manually manipulating the flight controls, you must maintain vigilance over the system to ensure that it performs the intended functions and the aircraft remains within acceptable parameters of altitudes, airspeeds, and airspace limits."
There are a lot of modern devices which can be very dangerous to use without some education. I would think someone willing to trust their car to drive them with no supervision is just dangerously foolish, and is possibly the same kind of person who might accidentally kill their buddy by flying a drone too fast and hitting him with it.
You can't dummy-proof everything. I doubt that the Tesla owner's manual says, "This autopilot system does absolutely everything. You can't crash it!" Instead I believe it tells you all the rules that you need to follow when using the autopilot. If you don't follow the instructions, that's on you.
How many products and services on the market in the US use bold names and labels to suggest or even directly state a feature that in actuality doesn't come close to the expectation?
But on the autopilot topic, I would say it is you and the general public that has deemed "autopilot" to mean something that it historically does not mean. The most common use of autopilot is in aircraft, and in that domain it can be very crude and simple or highly automated. But with the exception of advanced autopilot systems in modern commercial jets, typical autopilot system merely hold a set heading, pitch, and level.
Even the FAA says this: "While the autopilot relieves you from manually manipulating the flight controls, you must maintain vigilance over the system to ensure that it performs the intended functions and the aircraft remains within acceptable parameters of altitudes, airspeeds, and airspace limits."
There are a lot of modern devices which can be very dangerous to use without some education. I would think someone willing to trust their car to drive them with no supervision is just dangerously foolish, and is possibly the same kind of person who might accidentally kill their buddy by flying a drone too fast and hitting him with it.
You can't dummy-proof everything. I doubt that the Tesla owner's manual says, "This autopilot system does absolutely everything. You can't crash it!" Instead I believe it tells you all the rules that you need to follow when using the autopilot. If you don't follow the instructions, that's on you.