Thread by @Tweetermeyer

Does it matter what you call a Level 2 driver assistance system? A novel study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety shows that it definitely does, further validating the concerns @lizadixon voiced in her influential #Autonowashing paper aaafoundation.org/impact-of-info…

Basically, AAA looked at user mental models and behavior when two groups used the same Level 2 system... with one group they called it DriveAssist and the other they called it AutonoDrive (it was actually SuperCruise lol). The findings were pretty conclusive: names drive behavior

Folks... this is not good. Basically, branding is more powerful than even our own experience using a system. Everyone is going to say "yeah, but I'm not THAT dumb" but scientifically speaking you almost certainly are.

This is one of the reason that pushing software to untrained consumers called "feature complete Full Self-Driving" is a scary prospect we're all going to have to come to terms with soon. With that name, people are going to make massive assumptions about the software's capability.

That assumption of capability means people will engage in riskier behavior than they would have otherwise. Worse, as they use the system those riskier behaviors are likely to increase and not decrease (to be fair, this may not be the case if FSD is less reliable than SuperCruise)

Tesla's communications, particularly the CEO quotes/tweets that get the most attention, always emphasize the capabilities of Autopilot/FSD and not its limitations. That's happening even more with FSD, which hasn't even been released yet. Expectations are sky-high, so risk is too.

Since someone will inevitably attack the author (that's like 80% of the Tesla stan playbook), it's worth noting that the paper builds on past research into name & user expectation/safety in ADAS. Specifically:
AAA, 2019
Abraham, Seppelt et al., 2017
Nees, 2018
Teoh, 2020