The complicated ethics of Tesla’s Autopilot
What kinds of accidents is autopilot going to prevent that automated accident avoidance cannot? Why does it have to drive the car to achieve the safety benefits?<p>If you watch videos of autopilot preventing accidents on YouTube, it involves two stages: first the car detects a situation is likely to lead to a collision, then it brakes and steers the car to avoid it. There is no reason for autopilot to be controlling the vehicle before anticipating a collision.<p>By contrast the deaths involving autopilot have all revolved around autopilot failing to perceive some object, or swerving the car into it. I don&#x27;t know of any deaths that were caused by Tesla&#x27;s accident avoidance feature.