Fake autopilot considered harmful? Not that we did not know this already, of course.

People say that Elon Musk deserves some blame for porn inside an Autopilot-enabled Tesla:

I disagree. If Musk deserves blame, is not because someone shot such a clip. If Musk deserves blame, is for calling that feature an autopilot. The Tesla website, says the article I already quoted does explain that:

“Autopilot is intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any time. While Autopilot is designed to become more capable over time, in its current form, it is not a self-driving system."

Says Wikipedia that an Autopilot is “a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant ‘hands-on’ control by a human operator being required”. Got it? Something that requires you to keep your hands on the wheel is not an autopilot.

If you ask me, a system like that is a driving experience frustrating (and physically uncomfortable) like hell. That may be just grumpy old me, of course. Still, something that demands yor hands (and nothing else) on the wheel all the time is not an autopilot. It’s you paying to play beta tester of Tesla products.