Comment Re:If "yes," then it's not self-driving (Score 5, Interesting) 362
Therefore, you either keep the abstraction simplified and require the pilot to do a bit more work, or re-instate the flight engineer.
Last year I worked on a Stacker/Reclaimer (EG the big wheely bucket loaders that either scoop up huge piles of coal, or stack coal into piles), and has an operator out in a cabin doing the driving. The same system was being sold to two different customers. The first customer wanted an automatic mode that would guide the machine around the piles of coal and scoop/deliver in order to get an optimal materiel field while the operator sat back and basically watched.
The second customer basically said "I don't want no damn stinkin' automatic mode, because if I'm payin' for an operator to sit out there, he better be working"