A pilot using an autopilot doesn't doesn't even try to maintain an immediate "situational awareness" like is required to drive a car. When they are in a portion of the flight where the autopilot is used they aren't anywhere near something they could crash into so it is a hugely different task. Pilots often fly for very long periods of time without any repetitive scanning of the instruments because anything important that goes out of an acceptable range will give an audible alarm and they will have a number of minutes to deal with it before any resulting crash could happen. Often their biggest task is to simply remain awake so any alarm can be responded to.

Well I guess living in the LA area for 30 years doesn't count?

If you aren't able to keep track of things like staying in your lane and reacting to traffic I would suggest you are too busy or are just incompetent to drive a car.
That is EXACTLY what driving is. It is like saying you "are walking" but it is too much effort to not pay attention to keep from walking into or through people. (Kinda sounds like someone walking and texting...)

What I am actually hearing is that paying attention to the surrounding situation is too taxing so the intended purpose is to allow the driver to become disengaged for from the task of driving which is the exact opposite of "an alert driver" hence proving my point.

All of the current 'autopilot' features are based on the concept that they require "an alert driver to monitor the vehicle". Even the most casual look at human nature makes this stated requirement unobtainable, and more to the point, completely laughable.

- What EXACTLY is known to be required to keep a human alert and focused? It is very simply that the human must be actively engaged in some task that requires focus. Anything that removes a person from having to actively having to interact with their surroundings is simply a way of making them disengaged, bored, and inattentive. People being human will always find something else to focus on when there is nothing demanding their focus.
For safety you need to keep a driver from becoming task saturated but on the opposite end of that scale you must make sure that they are engaged to the task to keep their focus actively on that task. Otherwise you might as well be singing a lullaby in their ear.

Until they come up with a 100% AI driving system that never needs human interaction the whole concept of the autopilot for a car ignores human nature and is dangerous at its core. (And they are still quite a ways from making an AI that can drive through a snow storm. As bad as people can be it is still amazing the range of what a person can deal with.)

Yeah until the first really bad accident. The problem is that the correct way to drive a rig when it has been upset by a maneuver or a shifting load is by taking actions that can kill people.

It is almost always a catastrophic mistake to just hit the brakes in a trailer accident. That will cause the trailer to jackknife and then there is no control at all over a load that commonly may exceed 60,000 lbs. The correct course of action is always to worry first about keeping the trailer straight and then stopping. And about the only way to straighten out a rig that is a little 'out of shape' is: HIT THE GAS which includes being trained to plow through vehicles to keep the load under control. (Think about that the next time you think of brake checking a semi. They aren't just driving along. They are managing the weight of a couple houses as they go down the road.)

Saw some young warehouse guys do that to a shrink wrapped pallet of canned soft drinks. On purpose...

"Hey! Watch this!!" It looked like the Diet Coke/Mentos thing. The pallet just spewed foam.

A dead computer shipped in from the US Virgin Islands with a "thermal error" at POST. The note entered as resolution in the ticket system went:

"Opened and inspected computer. Removed dead lizard from power supply fan. Tested system and returned to customer."

We had 8 field trainers and in one year they destroyed 5 laptops by dumping drinks in them. It is pretty obvious that if you put an open drink next to a computer when a person turns around that the sweep of their arms will tend to push drinks into the computer.
I sent out an email saying that open drinks are not allowed near company computers.

The 'affront' of being told not to do something traveled up the food chain until the Director of Marketing showed up at my desk wanting to know why I would send out such an "offensive email" and it was obvious she was there for my butt. I explained that in the last calendar year we had to replace over $8000 in laptops from the negligence of her trainers. She turned right around and then sent out an email to the trainers telling them that open drinks are not allowed near a computer.

Yeah because no one has ever come up with a pump operated with a handle.

We should hurry up and make sure all transportation is electric!

(Having a civilization with a single point of failure is the modern "ecco" thing to do!!!)

But remember that people have successfully hacked Fitbit and Apple Watch accelerometers to record keystrokes and passwords.

Giving any of the big surveillance marketing companies access to any sensor attached to you is an incredibly questionable idea. Their ability to drill WAY too far into your life is already jaw dropping and the idea that they can go "just a little bit farther" should scare people because they are going to go "just a little bit farther" hundreds of times more.

So when selecting a company to create a device that can directly read your brain's intentions can you name a company you don't want ANYWHERE near that product?

How about . . . Facebook ?

And then they can declare their success!!!

Politics as usual. We are saved...

So exactly how many chips does an executive order produce? What a completely useless response.
Glad to see we can rely on politics to do something that does nothing.

In the winter they would use a snow machine pulling a sled for most everything they need to haul because in the winter a snow machine can go ANYWHERE and is much, much easier to use. People are surprised to find cars (mostly trucks) in damned near any village even when there are very limited roads. But in the winter why would you plow roads when you can hop on a snow machine and instantly be headed wherever you want for WAY less initial expense and ongoing operating expense.

In the summer going even sort distances on an ATV is an issue unless there is a trail. Muskeg/tundra is a damned near impassible sponge and making a track through it will make a 'scar' that may take more than a century to grow over.

If the article had been sourced in Alaska they never would have said "Snowmobile".
In Alaska they call them "Snow machines".