4 ms·

Computers are flying planes. This is a training issue more than any definitive "proof".

bsder 12y ago
A "training issue"? So, every pilot needs 30 years of experience and 20,000 hours and be a flight-safety expert and be an avid hang-gliding enthusiast? Good luck finding pilots. And how do those pilots get that 20,000 hours? Humans are bad at some tasks. This is an example of one of them.
- msandford 12y ago
  > And how do those pilots get that 20,000 hours? Sure, but there's the same problem with computer pilots: how do they establish a tremendous track record of safety such that people won't freak out? I don't mean "rationally decide that a computer flying is better than a person" but instead, emotionally accept it's a better idea? The odds in traditional aviation are pretty good these days; better than driving. But nobody wants to be the first person to be killed by a computer pilot. Acceptance is going to be a tough road.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    People have already been killed by computer pilots to various degrees. For example, that Helios flight that flew circles on autopilots after the pilots lost consciousness, then crashed because the computer wasn't programmed to land. Or incidents where airplanes have collided because they were put on the same path at the same altitude in opposite directions, and the autopilot held the course so precisely that they banged into each other, while a human pilot would likely have missed. Or the Air France flight that stalled into the Atlantic because the computer averaged the inputs of the two human pilots, preventing them from knowing that they were contradicting each other. Like autonomous cars, autonomous airliners have been steadily sneaking up on us for a while, and the first fatalities have already happened. It's a smooth function, not a pure on/off.
    - msandford 12y ago
      I guess what I'm referring to is the idea that there are no people in the cockpit at all, or even that there isn't a cockpit anymore. We've had tremendously advanced autopilots for a long time, but there have always been people up at the front, supposedly in charge. It's the difference between getting on a bus with a guy in the drivers seat who has auto-braking so he doesn't accidentally rear-end someone and getting on a bus with no driver at all. People are OK with the first, but less likely to be OK with the second. I'm not saying it's rationally correct for people to behave this way, but they do behave this way.
      - mikeash 12y ago
        I think you're right, but I think the distinction between "killed by a computer flying an airplane" and "killed with no human in the cockpit" is important. For one thing, I think it means the transition will be easier than most people fear. As we get more and more automated, we'll start making entire flights from gate to gate without human intervention. At some point, somebody will say, "It's been three years since the last time a human airline pilot actually did anything, so clearly you're all comfortable with being flown around by a computer, let's take that final step" in a convincing manner.
  - bsder 12y ago
    > But nobody wants to be the first person to be killed by a computer pilot. Personally, I don't want to be the last person killed by a human pilot. :) Agreed, though, that safety in aviation is generally quite good.
- BonsaiDen 12y ago
  Some things are hard, if you're moving to fully automated flying, you'll might just end up shifting the "training issue" to the hardware and software engineers, while removing the factor of "human intervention" in case of a fatal failure, and these happen: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/sensor-icing-caught-out-a320-crew-in-perpignan-crash-347457/ http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/sensor-icing-caugh... There was a similar issue in November of last year on flight to Barcelona, luckily, the pilots managed to restart the systems just before 150 people would have died.

bsder 12y ago

A "training issue"? So, every pilot needs 30 years of experience and 20,000 hours and be a flight-safety expert and be an avid hang-gliding enthusiast? Good luck finding pilots. And how do those pilots get that 20,000 hours? Humans are bad at some tasks. This is an example of one of them.

msandford 12y ago
> And how do those pilots get that 20,000 hours? Sure, but there's the same problem with computer pilots: how do they establish a tremendous track record of safety such that people won't freak out? I don't mean "rationally decide that a computer flying is better than a person" but instead, emotionally accept it's a better idea? The odds in traditional aviation are pretty good these days; better than driving. But nobody wants to be the first person to be killed by a computer pilot. Acceptance is going to be a tough road.
- mikeash 12y ago
  People have already been killed by computer pilots to various degrees. For example, that Helios flight that flew circles on autopilots after the pilots lost consciousness, then crashed because the computer wasn't programmed to land. Or incidents where airplanes have collided because they were put on the same path at the same altitude in opposite directions, and the autopilot held the course so precisely that they banged into each other, while a human pilot would likely have missed. Or the Air France flight that stalled into the Atlantic because the computer averaged the inputs of the two human pilots, preventing them from knowing that they were contradicting each other. Like autonomous cars, autonomous airliners have been steadily sneaking up on us for a while, and the first fatalities have already happened. It's a smooth function, not a pure on/off.
  - msandford 12y ago
    I guess what I'm referring to is the idea that there are no people in the cockpit at all, or even that there isn't a cockpit anymore. We've had tremendously advanced autopilots for a long time, but there have always been people up at the front, supposedly in charge. It's the difference between getting on a bus with a guy in the drivers seat who has auto-braking so he doesn't accidentally rear-end someone and getting on a bus with no driver at all. People are OK with the first, but less likely to be OK with the second. I'm not saying it's rationally correct for people to behave this way, but they do behave this way.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      I think you're right, but I think the distinction between "killed by a computer flying an airplane" and "killed with no human in the cockpit" is important. For one thing, I think it means the transition will be easier than most people fear. As we get more and more automated, we'll start making entire flights from gate to gate without human intervention. At some point, somebody will say, "It's been three years since the last time a human airline pilot actually did anything, so clearly you're all comfortable with being flown around by a computer, let's take that final step" in a convincing manner.
- bsder 12y ago
  > But nobody wants to be the first person to be killed by a computer pilot. Personally, I don't want to be the last person killed by a human pilot. :) Agreed, though, that safety in aviation is generally quite good.
BonsaiDen 12y ago
Some things are hard, if you're moving to fully automated flying, you'll might just end up shifting the "training issue" to the hardware and software engineers, while removing the factor of "human intervention" in case of a fatal failure, and these happen: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/sensor-icing-caught-out-a320-crew-in-perpignan-crash-347457/ http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/sensor-icing-caugh... There was a similar issue in November of last year on flight to Barcelona, luckily, the pilots managed to restart the systems just before 150 people would have died.