http://jalopnik.com/first-fatal-tesla-autopilot-crash-sparks-nhtsa-investig-1782916450Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied.
Taking with a grain of salt the statement about the driver: Since this was a fatal accident, they have no idea what he did or did not notice. They have a system that guarantees his hands were on the wheel, but that doesn't prove one way or the other if he was looking at the road, or if this magic phantom nigh-invisible semitrailer was perceivable by humans or not. Maybe he was staring at his cellphone, or looking at the scenery, or saw the semi and chose not to brake, or whatever.
It's a terrible statement because it tries to imply that their image recognition software is as good as the perception of the human driver. Sorry, no. What they're really admitting is that their image recognition software was so poor that it couldn't tell the difference between the sky and a semi.
Lesson learned: Software image recognition has a long way to go, you can't depend on it yet. You need other systems to scan for objects in your environment.
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