I found the following URL on CNN. Its subject is a crashed Tesla automobile that was being operated using autopilot.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/31/technology/tesla-model-x-crash-autopilot/index.html
In the following image taken from that URL, we see the crashed car in which the sole occupant was killed.
From that same URL, we read the following excerpts:
1) "Tesla said autopilot was activated during a fatal Model X crash last week in California."
2) ".... the driver had received "several visual and one audible" cue from the vehicle to grab the wheel "earlier in the drive,"
3) ".... drivers are expected to stay engaged when the feature is activated."
4) ".... drivers are safer when they have autopilot activated than when they do not."
From line 1, we learn that this vehicle was being tested with its autopilot activated.
From line 2, we must ask if conditions arose which warranted sending cues to the test driver occupant, why wasn't the car automatically braked in an attempt to come to a stop?
From line 3, I submit that the engagement of autopilot will tend to diminish driver attention and engagement and thus slow down driver reaction time in an emergency.
With line 4, I must take absolute exception.
It is my firm opinion that autopilot is a very real threat to public safety, not just to the unfortunate individual in the driver's seat but to any accompanying passengers and to any other persons happening to be in the vicinity of such a vehicle while it is operating on autopilot.
In my view, the kind of computer controlled behavior that is sought from autopilot would require that the controlling computer be sentient. In my view, it would require that the computer controlled car be self aware. I believe that this would require the development of an artificial intelligence at a level which has been hypothetically discussed as the "technological singularity" but which, so far as I have read, has not yet been achieved.
It is my view that the publicity which has been put forth asserting enhancement of driver/public safety based on the use of artificial intelligence, based on autonomous vehicle control, based on autopilot, constitutes a callous and unacceptable willingness to sacrifice lives for a profit motive.
Note that I did not say "jeopardize lives". It is my view that we are seeing something far worse coming our way with seeming inexorability and from which I very much fear for our collective well being.
