One of the things I continue to find disturbing when interacting with the markets we work in (e.g. self-driving & other highly-automated systems) is the growing

One of the things I continue to find disturbing when interacting with the markets we work in (e.g. self-driving & other highly-automated systems) is the growing hope that simulation will somehow bail people out of having to do real world validation, let them take significant shortcuts, or make assurance claims that can't really be made. We deal in formal verification for some aspects of what we do, and that lead to a conversation that went roughly like this: AV Exec: "Can we use formal methods to prove that our simulator is as good as reality?" Me: "No. You can use formal methods to prove your simulator implementation more closely adheres to your simulation model." AV Exec: "Isn't that the same thing?" Me: "No. Your simulation model is definitely wrong." AV Exec: (looking at me both disappointed and despondent) Me: "Look. It's important to understand that simulation isn't creating an approximation with a known correspondence to reality. Simulation is fabricating an entirely new reality with an opaque correlation to our reality." AV Exec: "Then how am I supposed to use simulation to prove our system is safe?" Me: "You can't." Despair on both sides of the table ensues.