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Your objections are about things that a human can't do much about either, or if they could, a computer could do just as well or better. (If your plane engine q

Your objections are about things that a human can't do much about either, or if they could, a computer could do just as well or better. (If your plane engine quits - what would a human do? whatever it is, a computer could be programmed to as well. Near collisions - a constantly vigilant computer vision system watching out the window is more likely to avoid collision than a pilot with 30 seconds of reaction time.)

lucasjung 15y ago
>If your plane engine quits - what would a human do? This depends on a lot of factors. Some of them are things that a computer can probably be programmed to consider properly (e.g. specific cause of failure). Other factors require judgment, such as your more general situation: depending on where you are and what else is going wrong, you might chose to land the airplane at the nearest appropriate airfield, or you might choose to continue on to an airfield farther away where you can get better support while attempting to restart the failed engine on your way there, or you might decide that you have to get it on the ground right now, and that empty farmer's field over there looks good enough. In case of more catastrophic failures like fire, computers become even more problematic because the sensors they depend on for inputs can be damaged or destroyed, leaving them with insufficient information to act properly. >Near collisions - a constantly vigilant computer vision system watching out the window is more likely to avoid collision than a pilot with 30 seconds of reaction time. People with a lot of money and resources have been trying to develop a fully autonomous system for avoiding impending collisions. They will almost certainly eventually succeed, but so far they haven't even come close to being as visual scan by human pilots. [EDIT: resolved ambiguous use of "field.")
- marshallp 15y ago
  A billion dollars was spent by the eu in the 80s on self-driving cars. They didn't completely succeed. It looked like noone would succeed for 30 years. And yet, bang, when the competition's opened up, a couple of guys from stanford do it. I believe the technology to solve the problem is out there, it's just a matter of the right people trying at it. Computer vision is close to being solved. Look at kinect, kinect 2/google goggles. People inside google/microsoft are racing at this. I'm sorry, i have to disagree with your pessimistic attitude on this. With regard to fire - fire can kill human pilots too. With sensors, you can create a multiply redundant system - put in 20 extra sensors. With humans it's not possible.
  - lucasjung 15y ago
    Nothing you say addresses my broader point that there are currently too many situations in aviation where the complexity of the decisions involved exceeds our current capacity for automation. A billion dollars was spent by the eu in the 80s on self-driving cars. They didn't completely succeed. It looked like noone would succeed for 30 years. And yet, bang, when the competition's opened up, a couple of guys from stanford do it. I believe the technology to solve the problem is out there, it's just a matter of the right people trying at it. If they tried in the '80s and the guys from Stanford did it in the 2000's, then it was almost 30 years before anyone succeeded. I think that success had a lot more to do with technology maturing over time than it did with "the right people trying at it." >Computer vision is close to being solved. Look at kinect, kinect 2/google goggles. People inside google/microsoft are racing at this. This really depends on what you mean by "solved." Kinect is a hell of a long way from what you would need to avoid collisions in a 3D space. Kinect basically just has to deal with the outlines of objects at a relatively narrow set of distances. When your sensor is moving in three dimensions and you are trying to track an object that is also moving in three dimensions it gets a heck of a lot harder, even if you are using radar (which gives you range). If you're trying to figure out range based on the apparent size of an object of unknown actual size, it gets even harder. >I'm sorry, i have to disagree with your pessimistic attitude on this. I'm actually quite optimistic that it will happen, just not for many years yet. >With regard to fire - fire can kill human pilots too. With sensors, you can create a multiply redundant system - put in 20 extra sensors. With humans it's not possible. If your engine is out on a wing and it catches fire, the fire sensors will tell you so, and shortly thereafter they will most likely be destroyed and tell you nothing further. An engine on fire out on the wing is not going to burn up the pilot. The pilot can look out the window and quickly and easily assess the condition of the engine and the wing: did it burn out, or is it raging out of control, or maybe there are subtle signs that indicate something in-between? Maybe with enough fire sensors scattered all over the plane a computer could make a similar assessment, but you're talking about a lot of extra money and weight, and you still have the problem that your sensors are going to burn up shortly after going off and then you have no idea if the fire has gone away or if it has just stopped spreading. Someday maybe you can give the computer a camera to "look" at the wing to make the same kind of assessment that a human pilot can make, but that is a very long way off.

lucasjung 15y ago

>If your plane engine quits - what would a human do? This depends on a lot of factors. Some of them are things that a computer can probably be programmed to consider properly (e.g. specific cause of failure). Other factors require judgment, such as your more general situation: depending on where you are and what else is going wrong, you might chose to land the airplane at the nearest appropriate airfield, or you might choose to continue on to an airfield farther away where you can get better support while attempting to restart the failed engine on your way there, or you might decide that you have to get it on the ground right now, and that empty farmer's field over there looks good enough. In case of more catastrophic failures like fire, computers become even more problematic because the sensors they depend on for inputs can be damaged or destroyed, leaving them with insufficient information to act properly. >Near collisions - a constantly vigilant computer vision system watching out the window is more likely to avoid collision than a pilot with 30 seconds of reaction time. People with a lot of money and resources have been trying to develop a fully autonomous system for avoiding impending collisions. They will almost certainly eventually succeed, but so far they haven't even come close to being as visual scan by human pilots. [EDIT: resolved ambiguous use of "field.")

marshallp 15y ago
A billion dollars was spent by the eu in the 80s on self-driving cars. They didn't completely succeed. It looked like noone would succeed for 30 years. And yet, bang, when the competition's opened up, a couple of guys from stanford do it. I believe the technology to solve the problem is out there, it's just a matter of the right people trying at it. Computer vision is close to being solved. Look at kinect, kinect 2/google goggles. People inside google/microsoft are racing at this. I'm sorry, i have to disagree with your pessimistic attitude on this. With regard to fire - fire can kill human pilots too. With sensors, you can create a multiply redundant system - put in 20 extra sensors. With humans it's not possible.
- lucasjung 15y ago
  Nothing you say addresses my broader point that there are currently too many situations in aviation where the complexity of the decisions involved exceeds our current capacity for automation. A billion dollars was spent by the eu in the 80s on self-driving cars. They didn't completely succeed. It looked like noone would succeed for 30 years. And yet, bang, when the competition's opened up, a couple of guys from stanford do it. I believe the technology to solve the problem is out there, it's just a matter of the right people trying at it. If they tried in the '80s and the guys from Stanford did it in the 2000's, then it was almost 30 years before anyone succeeded. I think that success had a lot more to do with technology maturing over time than it did with "the right people trying at it." >Computer vision is close to being solved. Look at kinect, kinect 2/google goggles. People inside google/microsoft are racing at this. This really depends on what you mean by "solved." Kinect is a hell of a long way from what you would need to avoid collisions in a 3D space. Kinect basically just has to deal with the outlines of objects at a relatively narrow set of distances. When your sensor is moving in three dimensions and you are trying to track an object that is also moving in three dimensions it gets a heck of a lot harder, even if you are using radar (which gives you range). If you're trying to figure out range based on the apparent size of an object of unknown actual size, it gets even harder. >I'm sorry, i have to disagree with your pessimistic attitude on this. I'm actually quite optimistic that it will happen, just not for many years yet. >With regard to fire - fire can kill human pilots too. With sensors, you can create a multiply redundant system - put in 20 extra sensors. With humans it's not possible. If your engine is out on a wing and it catches fire, the fire sensors will tell you so, and shortly thereafter they will most likely be destroyed and tell you nothing further. An engine on fire out on the wing is not going to burn up the pilot. The pilot can look out the window and quickly and easily assess the condition of the engine and the wing: did it burn out, or is it raging out of control, or maybe there are subtle signs that indicate something in-between? Maybe with enough fire sensors scattered all over the plane a computer could make a similar assessment, but you're talking about a lot of extra money and weight, and you still have the problem that your sensors are going to burn up shortly after going off and then you have no idea if the fire has gone away or if it has just stopped spreading. Someday maybe you can give the computer a camera to "look" at the wing to make the same kind of assessment that a human pilot can make, but that is a very long way off.