Exactly - the sort of situation that a manual pilot would have not gotten into, but because the autopilot was driving, they didn't realize what was happening.... The autopilot screwed up because of the sensor problem that gave it bad info....
Way back in my college days, the school had a flight school and a policy that non-flight major students could get a free ride in the back seat on a training flight - (note the rules said it had to be 'instructor training' - not novice training)
I took them up on it, and part of the flight was what the instructor called 'unusual attitudes' I learned about this when I was asked if I got airsick! I was then told to let them know if I started having problems as they didn't want to have to clean the plane...
The training was that the 'student' would have to wear a hood that blocked outside vision, and look at his lap so he couldn't see the instruments... The instructor would then put the plane through a bunch of turns and spins to the limit of what aerobatics it could do, then tell the student to take over... The student would have to figure out what the plane was doing, correct it and return to 'straight & level' flight on the designated course just by looking at the instruments.... Definitely a fun ride....
The Air France pilots hadn't practiced this enough (especially on that plane) to recognize it fast enough...
In the car driver case - supposedly the typical accident scenario has less than 3 seconds between the initial 'Oh Crap' and 'Bang'... If the self driving control messes up, how many drivers would even be able to look up and figure out what is wrong let alone respond to it??? When I am driving, I at least know what the car is doing (hopefully...)
ex-Gooserider