[badprose]

Most people don't learn the term from commercial aviation, they learn they term from movies where someone turns on the "autopilot" then goes to handle whatever is happening at the back of the plane.

I assumed autopilots in planes could actually fly by themselves and the pilots were really only there for take-off, landing and turbulence.

[886]

Planes can actually land themselves with ILS and MLS systems. Autoland is usually used during bad weather or poor visibility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0OJ-rPDXNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=151fGX4xazs

[quelltext]

And some cars can auto-park nowadays: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_parking

But neither planes nor cars with autopilot + autoland/park functionality are fully autonomous.

The only place where we have this today is on some on rails systems (trains like in Paris, buses on fixed rails like in Tokyo's Yurikamome or some amusement parks, etc.).

[miahi]

But for this they depend on a lot of (expensive) ground infrastructure, that is not available on roads.

[HPsquared]

That's in the context of an action film though, if people based their ideas on those we would live in a strange world indeed. Hmmm, actually come to think of it...

[Zenbit_UX]

Nevertheless it's true. Autopilot as seen in countless movies now means "set it and forget it" to more people than a rudimentary aeronautical cruise control.