I had an incident in my brand new Audi Q5 yesterday that illustrates the differences between Boeing's "you don't need to know" approach to engineering and what I consider the correct approach.
My new car represents a huge jump in tech compared to my early 2000's vehicle. One of its features is "lane keeping assist" which keeps the car centered on the road based on a camera that looks at the fog line As I was trying out this feature on the freeway, the car suddenly pulled hard to the right. At that moment I realized that the LKA system was trying to follow an offramp, and rather firmly informed it that I preferred to stay on the freeway, thank you. I then resolved not to re-enable the system, which I do not consider ready for production,
There are similarities between this system and MCAS; both are automatic systems that attempt to provide artificial "feel" (LKA will also simulate road turtles if it thinks that you are going off the road) and both can be confused by bad external input. Both can have catastrophic effects on the "flight" (taking an offramp at high speed can lead to a crash.) However, there are crucial differences that make the LKA system annoying rather than deadly:
- The system is off by default and has to be enabled by the driver.
- The heads-up display and dashboard indicate that LKA is active
- The salesman (actually the salesman for a different vehicle) demonstrated the problem on a test drive
- The system can be overridden by steering wheel inputs (not some secondary switch.)
- Once overridden, it doesn't keep trying to follow the lane markers
Now imagine the same scenario where LKA is on by default and drivers are not informed of it. Imagine turning in a 2000 Audi Q5 for a 2019 Audi Q5, driving home, and having it suddenly dart towards the exit ramp at high speed, without you knowing that the car even has the possibility of trying to drive itself. You might assume that you have just lost a wheel or had a flat, and take extreme actions in response rather than just firmly holding the wheel and swearing. Knowing that LKA exists and a bit about how it works meant that I could instantly diagnose the problem; intuiting that it might have an automatic system that I have to fight would take a level of intelligence that I do not posses.