Tesla crashes and the investigations that follow generate a lot of headlines, but the dangers of automotive automation are industrywide. The common denominator is the human behind the wheel.
The 737 Max is the best-selling airliner ever. But two have crashed in five months, killing 346, damaging Boeing’s future and raising questions about the increasing sophistication of cockpit technology.
More tasks are being given over to automation, from autopilots in transport to medical diagnosis. But humans are a poor backup for automation, especially when the automation goes wrong.
Experts in the field of human factors – how people interact with machines – warn that “self-driving” cars need to be more of a cooperative effort between human driver and tech than the hype would suggest.