I am so sick and tired of this belief because it's clear people have no idea what Autopilot on a plane actually does. They always seem to assume it flies the plane and the pilot doesn't do anything apparently. Autopilot alone does not fly the damned plane by itself.
"Autopilot" in a plane keeps the wings level at a set heading, altitude, and speed. It's literally the same as cruise control with lane-centering, since there's an altitude issue on a road.
There are more advanced systems available on the market that can be installed on smaller planes and in use on larger jets that can do things like auto takeoff, auto land, following waypoints, etc. without pilot input, but basic plain old autopilot doesn't do any of that.
That expanded capability is similar to how things like "Enhanced Autopilot" on a Tesla can do extra things like change lanes, follow highway exits on a navigated route, etc. Or how "Full Self-Driving" is supposed to follow road signs and lights, etc. but those are additional functions, not part of "Autopilot" and differentiated with their own name.
Autopilot, either on a plane or a Tesla, alone doesn't do any of that extra shit. It is a very basic system.
The average person misunderstanding what a word means doesn't make it an incorrect name or description.