Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

AutoPilot is perfectly safe if you look out the damn window while it’s operating. There are some disputed statistics saying that it is in fact safer on than off, even over the same type of miles. AutoPilot has in fact been safely operated for over a billion miles in the real world.

Drivers need to look out the window. It is not in any way difficult to maintain situational awareness while operating under AutoPilot for extended periods of time. In fact I find it easier to stay alert for longer periods of driving — that is, longer drives are less tiring — when using AutoPilot. It is in no way akin to “watching paint dry”.

The claim has been made that Level 2 autonomy is dangerous because of the ability for the driver to become distracted. This is actually true of all modes of driving, and relevant from Level 0 through Level 4 autonomy. Smartphones are often cited as the reason why driving death rate stopped falling for the last several years. Meaning distracted driving has killed thousands of drivers in that time. Distracted driving has also killed 3 people while AutoPilot was engaged. This is tragic, but it is wholly the drivers’ fault.

Using AutoPilot for about 5 minutes will disabuse you of the notion that you don’t have to pay attention. Anyone who has used it will testify that there is no question the driver needs to monitor it. The name of the feature, or Elon’s fantastical claims of future capabilities, is basically only perturbing to those who haven’t actually used the feature.

However, I think it is reasonable to question whether Tesla AutoPilot presents simply too great a temptation to willfully abuse the system. That is, to check your cellphone or watch a movie or otherwise take your eyes off the road. Not because it is hard or too difficult to remain focused, not because the driver believes they don’t need to be looking out the window, but because while the driver knows they should watch the road, they decide to cheat anyway. Unfortunately the same thing happens in Level 0 vehicles, which tragic results, all the time.

It’s reasonable to question how much cars should be monitoring the attention/gaze of the driver and alerting, chastising, or otherwise forcing the driver to re-engage. But any such discussion would be superficially anti-Tesla if it were to disregard the universal nature of the problem of distracted driving.

Mandatory driver attention monitoring systems, in all cars from Level 0 to Level 4 autonomy, would likely save over a thousand lives a year in the US alone. It might even save 1 life a year in a Tesla.

Your false equivalence with Boeing is egregious. Pilots stuggling to maintain control over a fatally flawed plane is not even on the same league as a distracted driver watching a movie while their car hurtles down the highway into the side of a big rig. The pilots of the 737 were in no way negligent or distracted whatsoever. They were actively subverted by a malfunctioning airframe intent on flying them into the ground, god rest their souls.

Under the radar is an idiom. It is used to describe things that occur in areas not typically subject to observation, or widespread acknowledgement/general awareness. In this case by regulators, or the public in general.

I think you might have misunderstood the poster above you when they suggested trying to fully automate airplanes; maintaining the analog of every sensor required to fully enable totally automated operation would require the installation of full suites of broadband sensors on the plane, allowing it to collect all information with regards to the environment it is working in, and sending it "back home". Admittedly, this is less problematic, because planes don't operate within the confines of everyday life, and thus are not omnipresent, capable of acting as a ubiquitous surveillance platform.

When I say this has been going on "Under the radar", I'm referring to the slow adoption of increasingly more varied and densely packed sensor packages in vehicles offered to provide some token discount, but with very little oversight into what type of data is generated, communicated, stored, or otherwise.

Planes being tracked by radar is fine. That comes with the mode of transport. It's an air transport's version of a Stop light or signage.

Long term persisted data collected by cars, however, is not, and should not be.

Article is not about cars that "have computers and data" its about connected cars that are sharing personal information ( how fast we drive, where we live, how many children we have — even financial information ) with manufacturer.

Do you know what % of cars in the market today are sending this information back to manufacturer ?

Wasn't trying to take away your rights, but rather the opposite. There's an old saying, "your rights end at the tip of my nose."

I quite agree.