5 Questions for Missy Cummings: The Former Fighter Pilot on why Autonomous Vehicles are so Risky

In October 2021, Missy Cummings left her engineering professorship at Duke University to join the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) in a temporary position as a senior safety advisor. It wasn't long before Elon Musk tweeted an attack: “Objectively, her track record is extremely biased against Tesla.” He was referring to Cummings's criticism of his company's Autopilot, which is supposed to help the driver drive, though some customers have used it to make the car drive itself—sometimes with disastrous results.