Rockie wrote: ↑Tue May 15, 2018 2:29 pm
My comment about engineers vis-a-vis this thread is that engineers are notorious for thinking they have a mathematical or mechanical solution for everything. It's how I suspected Posthumane was.
Or maybe it was from the last time we had this discussion, where I told you that I'm an engineer. Same way I knew you flew for Air Canada and used to drive a Hornet. Being an engineer certainly doesn't guarantee that you're smart (or even that you're good at math). Neither does being a pilot. But you keep focusing on who is making the points, rather than the points themselves.
Rockie wrote: ↑Tue May 15, 2018 2:29 pm
You're still missing this. Computers don't know fear, computers don't know anything. They don't know for example that the thing they did yesterday will get them killed today. They don't know that the thing they are programmed to not do is the very thing they need to do. Can you see how this might apply to flying airplanes and why it requires an actual mind?
So are you telling me that you re-invent the principles of your flight every time you fly? Doing the thing that you did yesterday (i.e. following the checklists, SOPs, aircraft limitations, checking the weather) will get you killed on a flight today? There are occasionally new situations that come up, but in reality they're pretty rare. I'm willing to bet that almost every situation that you've been in, somebody else has also been in before. Including the ones that weren't covered anywhere in the QRH, AOIs, SOPs, etc.
Computers "know" exactly what you "tell" them. If you know how to avoid storms and wake turbulence (because someone along the line taught you; you didn't come up with those things yourself) then a system designed for autonomous operations can "know" those things as well. There's a very complex decision tree associated with the multitude of decisions required on every flight, but that decision tree is finite.
Tell me, what do you think is easier for you. Flying IFR or catching a beer can tossed to you without warning while on a fishing trip? Which do you think is easier for a machine to learn?
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." -George Bernard Shaw