[malwrar]

This expresses the mindset I find myself in when I use Autopilot. It's like enabling cruise control, you're still watching traffic around you but now you don't need to focus on maintaining the correct speed or worry about keeping your car perfectly in a lane. You can more or less let the car handle that (with your hands on the wheel to guard against the occasional jerky maneuver when a lane widens for example) while you focus on the conditions around you.

[throwaway0a5e]

Exactly. It frees the driver from increasingly advanced levels of mundane driving (cruise control manages just speed, adaptive cruise also deals with following distance, lane keeping deals with most of the steering input, etc) allowing the driver to focus more on monitoring the situation and strategic portion of driving rather than the tactical. Of course, this relies on the driver to actually do that. They could just use devote that extra attention to their phone.

[scrumbledober]

my 2021 Subaru Forester does all of these things and I do feel like I am safer with them on and paying attention to the rest of driving.

[somedude895]

Exactly this. I treat AP like I'm letting a learner drive. Constantly observing to make sure it's doing the right thing. I've been on long road trips and with AP my mind stays fresh for much longer compared to with other cars.