3 ms·

Except there are checks and balances in place before software gets installed on a plane.

• mikeash 12y ago
  Those don't always work. There are checks and balances in place before pilots get to fly airplanes, too.
  • nextw33k 12y ago
    > Those don't always work Of course not, nothing always works. You are implying that checks are worthless because they failed on this co-pilot. In the context of a pilots mental state verses malicious source code being installed on a set of flight computers, I'd have to say the computer is easier to validate. That many more people have to approve the process. With a pair of pilots the validation process is much smaller and more complex. We need to stop thinking that machines are flawed and that humans know best. The fact of life is that machines can and do perform better than humans, the only reason flight computers don't currently is that there hasn't been the investment in making them do so. Sensors fail but that is an engineering problem that can be solved.