If language is destiny, then the language of self-driving cars is broken. People are dying because of it, and whatever benefits we might see—from safety to pollution to traffic—will be delayed unless we solve this problem. Everyone is guilty, from the media to automakers, tech companies, marketers and investors, all of whom—whether they know it or not—muddle terms like autonomy, automation, autopilot, driverless and self-driving to suit their own narratives.Everyone wants to believe, but no one knows what anyone else is talking about.
There are no self-driving or autonomous cars available today, which means that responsibility for every road death—whether in a Tesla or any car whose driver misunderstood the limits of technologies that aren't yet remotely autonomous—falls on anyone slinging the current language.
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