Reply to post: Fake driver?

US watchdog opens probe into Tesla's Autopilot driver assist system after spate of crashes

Eclectic Man Silver badge

Fake driver?

"Tests from a US-based consumer rights organisation in April were claimed to show that Autopilot could be enabled by fastening the driver-side seatbelt and hanging a weight off the steering wheel, bypassing safety features intended to ensure a human at the wheel is paying some attention to the road ahead."

Surely this could be solved by a camera pointed at the driver using AI face recognition ensuring that only a registered driver was allowed to engage 'autopilot' while actually sitting in the driver seat? And if the eyes don't blink and there is no appearance of respiration the car slows and calls the emergency services. And fingerprint sensors in the steering wheel could ensure that someone was actually holding on to it.

But that would probably be too intrusive, and the car could be used as a 'witness' to any road traffic law violations to state who was actually at the wheel at the time of the incident, officer.

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