When will AI make pilots obsolete or less critical?

[Red_Comet]

Let's say we have skynet level intelligence today. How long will it take to build, certify and sell autonomous airliners? How many of these are in production now? Can these Skynet boxes be retroactively installed in DC11s flying cargo?

Wishful thinking is great, but reality dominates. Airlines will be the last industry to automate for many reasons. It really is very obvious once some common sense is used.

[philaviate]

You would presume wrong. In reality it's a very busy machine processing near real time data from close to a thousand locations scattered around North America, doing preliminary analysis on that data as it arrives

I know most here are somewhat unaware of how fast this part of the industry is progressing, but here is a short clip that demonstrates just how fast the development is happening, pay particular attention to the difference between 'last year' and 'this year' in terms of capability.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hpf5NLmwKQU

Now ponder where things go with another 5 years of development at this pace...

I didn't really presume wrong. It is a dedicated task machine. Not a generalist. It does one job, analyse data.

That's what I mean, when you get a generalist, like a phone, or PC or whatever that is trying be a jack of all trades, it becomes inherently more unreliable.
Can we build an auto land. Yep. Can we build a general AI that knows the correct decision to make when something massively out of the ordinary occurs? Less likely. That's where best human judgement comes into play. And that's why human judgement is ultimately tested against the will of the people through laws and punishment.
The computers need to be programmed by humans, and some of the things we need it to decide we can't even decide for ourselves in a general format. For instance the trolley problem in ethics.

Also, the point of failure is significantly different for general computers than something running a single task all day. A human is the ultimate general computer.

And on the opposite side we have simple failures or finger trouble that have brought down human piloted aircraft that would likely have been saved if a computer was flying.

You seem to be demanding 100% perfection from computers while humans don't even achieve that.

No.

As I pointed out, we have a process for dealing with human screw ups. Laws and punishments, based on best ethical application of what we relatively agree is the "acceptable standard".

Machines cannot be similarly punished. That is one big shortcoming.

We also overcome human error, by having two.

And yes I'm all for technology supporting them. Maybe we would be ultimately safer with a computer flying the plane in 99.9999% of flights. But it's the one where it goes wrong that pilots earn their money, so why not still have them there to make the ultimate ethical decisions.

Computers are black and white. Sometimes we need a splodge of grey in the real world.

[digits_]

And yes I'm all for technology supporting them. Maybe we would be ultimately safer with a computer flying the plane in 99.9999% of flights. But it's the one where it goes wrong that pilots earn their money, so why not still have them there to make the ultimate ethical decisions.

Because, hypothetically, they will screw up things that the computer would have handled perfectly.

To add random numbers for comparison: using pilots with a 1 in a million error rate to correct a computer with a 1 in a billion error rate, would be counterproductive and defeat the purpose

Liability wise I don't think it would be much different if a plane crashes because of a faulty autopilot or because an engine falls off the plane. You'll always have the battle between manufacturers, operators and maintenance departments to avoid blame.

[piperdriver]

Phileaviate wrote

As I pointed out, we have a process for dealing with human screw ups. Laws and punishments, based on best ethical application of what we relatively agree is the "acceptable standard".


No we don't, stop living in your fantasy land and come back to reality.

Transport Canada doesn't enforce laws or come forth with any punishments. If your a Northern Operator you can crash as many airplanes as you wish and even camp out with your passengers in the middle of winter and Transport Canada doesn't revoke your AOC or issue fines. Just make sure your paperwork is in order because paperwork is what makes this industry safe.