[loeg]

A self-driving vehicle would be a step beyond current autopilot, and asking any human to constantly monitor an autonomous system is going to result in pretty catastrophic failure. An autonomous system needs to be fail-safe to be used.

Plane autopilot only works because air is so empty and flying in the same direction at constant elevation is unlikely to result in any problem. There are repeated examples of both pilots falling asleep and planes over-shooting destination airports, for example.

[toomuchtodo]

> A self-driving vehicle would be a step beyond current autopilot, and asking any human to constantly monitor an autonomous system is going to result in pretty catastrophic failure. An autonomous system needs to be fail-safe to be used.

I think the idea we’ll attain this in the next decade or two is borderline delusional, but to each their own.

Commercial aviation is one of the safest transportation mechanisms in the world; aircraft can go runway to runway in mostly automated fashion (auto throttle/TOGA [take off go around] for takeoff, autopilot for cruise, autoland for landing). We (customers and regulators) still require human attention the entire time.

[travisjungroth]

> aircraft can go taxiway to taxiway fully automated.

Source?

[toomuchtodo]

My comment was unintentionally overgenerous. I’ve corrected my statement after reviewing the aviation stackoverflow site, and flushed it out with more details (specific aviation terms).