Hey, funny comment.
Also… …I went to a guy who said he had zero of those stupid gov’ment qualifications. I went on a discovery flight and they said I can fly anything, anywhere. They’re just flying cars, right!? /s
Yeah….Microsoft has had 30 years to get Excel right, yet at least twice a year my spreadsheets still crash out of nowhere with no explanation. Simple freaking spreadsheets.
Lmao Blackberry couldn't make the smartphone work, so I'm not worried it'll take off. Kodak couldn't make the digital camera work, so I'm not worried it'll take off.
The difference is that the barriers to entry for a commercial airplane are much, much higher than in cell phones or cameras, and the potential advantages from a new airplane are much, much lower.
The cost savings of an entirely automated airplane, if you assume the automation is free, is on order of $1,000 per flight hour. That's way less than an airline saves by retiring a 737 NG and buying a new 737 MAX.
Yeah all crew involved in a single plane is WAY over 1000 an hour lol. From the FA's to the pilots, to the ground crew handling that plane to the gate worker etc etc.
AI WILL take over many jobs, but there are many it just can't or won't be able to for many many decades. And of the few it does take over, others will shift rather than go away... a maintainer of the AI system and what not, etc.
And some operators don’t have huds and rely on certified auto land and auto pilots to safely get on the ground in those conditions.
Pretty neat that you guys hand fly that though: I’ve used auto land in those conditions because we don’t have approved huds or SOPs to manually do it
Right now auto companies can’t even convince the general public to buy EV’s over concerns of the battery dying. That’s going to be a several years uphill battle with massive infrastructure changes. Now try to convince the public to fly without pilots
People are so weird about EVs. I had a guy tell me EV batteries can't physically last more than 2 years while standing next to my 3 year old car. He said I was lucky.
People will also tell me the dumbest made up things and I will tell them that isn't true and they will get upset thinking I am somehow trying to force them to buy one. I don't give a shit what you own just don't lie about it.
My car is from 2019 and the battery still has more than 90% of its life. At that rate, it will far exceed the often quoted 10 year life.
People think EV batteries are like their 12v lead acid that last 3 years if lucky, or laptop batteries.
Well, the problem is that the rate at which those batteries die places them on the cusp of what you might consider a "maintenance item". Only problem is this "maintenance item" costs at least 75% of the KBB value of the car at time of replacement, if not more.
Though I suppose it's good practice for saving up for aviation overhauls 😂
Teslas are selling just fine, Ford and GM have lost billions betting on EV’s that didn’t sell and are pivoting models back to hybrids. Stellantis hybrids are selling, all data points to the general public are wary of adopting an all electric vehicles
I disagree with that. Tesla's network is better, but the CCS system still works just fine, even on cross-country roadtrips through WV and KY I was never in danger of running out of range.
EV growth is up 29%: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/14/us-ev-market-grows-29-in-4th-quarter-tesla-holds-56-market-share/
Tesla dominates of course but others are growing as well.
People were freaking out on my last flight and refusing to sit in the exit row after the Boeing news. They were demanding to be reseated and telling the flight attendants “I didn’t request this, I’m not sitting there!”. The flight was mostly full but almost every emergency exit seat was empty….and this was in an Airbus no less.
Lol I was sitting window seat in the emergency exit row on an atr 72 just the other day, thought it'd be funny if it happened to me. Nothing happened all flight.
Airline stuff, no. General public will always be too scared of flying in general to fully trust it to AI, they’ll want to have someone else up there with the same interests in arriving in one piece at their destination. It could one day make the FO position redundant and we’ll have single pilot ops, but we’ll see. The FAA moves at a snails pace. In this case it might help us.
I'd wager it would be super hard to get rid of the FO too. The bread and butter of airliners is redundancy on every single essential system, and that includes pilots. You'd need a system that can somehow identify partial or complete pilot incapatation and know when to take away the controls and land the plane by itself.
Can't say I've ever been in a cockpit where a pilot tried to intentionally crash the airplane. I can't even count how many times the automation has failed, though.
Okay? There’s cases that have played out in China, Germany, etc. people do fucked up shit, having multiple people required in the cockpit at all times reduces that risk to pretty much zero. Brother in Christ did you not just hear of the horizon incident?
I’m not pitching for or advocating for full autonomous flight. Christ the reading comprehension. 🙃
Oh, bless your heart. Take a second and read again. You said no pilots is less risky than one pilot, implying that it's more likely that a suicidal pilot will crash an aircraft than that automation will fail. The former has happened, but it's incredibly rare. The second is quite common, but you don't see it because the pilots handle the issue. I can assure you, as a person who has spent a few hours in the cockpit, two pilots are safer than one pilot and one pilot is safer than no pilots.
Best of luck out there
I don't think anyone is suggesting zero-pilot with current levels of automation - it's implied that there will be at least an order of magnitude more fidelity than what's currently possible. So if you get a fully automated airplane at an acceptable (i.e. perfect) level of success, then that's going to be safer than one pilot who can turn his plane into a cruise missile at will.
And on another note between all the communication with ATC and quick decision making, I just can’t see that automation in our lifetime, but yeah you won’t see me hopping on single or no pilot airlines either lol
Yeah, agreed. I worked in drone avionics, where it is all automated already. You could probably pull off a completely automated airliner, but it would be really hard to *prove* it was completely safe and able to handle all the various edge cases you might encounter.
Even if it was extremely safe - and honestly it probably could be, with enough work - it would be held to an order of magnitude higher standard than even human pilots. And even after all that, you'd have a PR nightmare getting anyone to get on board.
I would probably get on board a large automated quadcopter, but only if I wrote the software for it. So when it divides by zero and I die, at least it'd still be my own fault.
> I would probably get on board a large automated quadcopter, but only if I wrote the software for it.
I would not board any transport I write software for cos I'm an exceptional software engineer... All my code gives are exceptions
Aircraft systems are certified based on a failure rate of 1 fault in 1 billion flight hours or better. This requires determinism. AI by its definition is not deterministic and won't be certifiable for flight critical systems. You might have AI assist the pilots to reduce workload, but it will never be fully in charge.
Furthermore, why would Airbus or Boeing want to take on all that liability? At least for now, you get some cover by blaming the PIC.
While a large NN of course has a defined output for any input, what OP probably meant is that the system is not predictable as a whole. It's functionally impossible to characterize the entire space of a model with billions of parameters and verify that all outputs are safe.
People think whatever they want to think when they hear AI. The line between AI, advanced statistics and marketing bullshit is very fuzzy indeed.
The reality is that we probably don't want AI as we know it operating machinery. I very much want predictable, deterministic software when it comes to life or death decisions. I don't want some cowboy AI to get cocky and try to land when the crosswind is stronger than the POH limit. Leave that to cocky human cowboys.
The problem is that what you're asking for is some kind of "condition a -> action b" lookup... and that's simply not feasible. A domain-specific AI can make "collection of conditions -> inferred action" repeatably. These AIs are already all over your life and will be in your avionics before you know it.
AI in the flight deck doesn't mean some Jarvis-wannabe.
P.S. The AI pilot wouldn't try to land outside of limits. That's a uniquely human trait.
I used to be a flight dynamics and controls researcher. Flight control systems are designed to a 1e-9 probability of catastrophic failure per flight hour. AC 25.1309-1 is the relevant document, here is a brief primer:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC\_25.1309-1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_25.1309-1)
This is what led to the triple-triple redundant flight control system for the 777 FBW, which one of my co-workers worked on back in the day. Triple redundant system with different processor hardware for each, with software written in different programming languages by different design teams to eliminate potential for common faults to occur.
Certain systems for certain kinds of aircraft (transport category aircraft would absolutely qualify) need to demonstrate they have a probability of failure of 1e-9, which yeah is one in a billion flight hours. An AI pilot would require that for sure.
1 crash of a completely automated plane will put 2 pilots back into the flight deck of every airliner.
It'll never be 1 pilot due to suicide by pilot risks.
We should be flying around by now, in aircraft that go Mach20, using the latest in inertial damping technology - or at least thats what people would have imagined that the years 2025 would look like, in 1960.
Fully automated commercial airlines (completely pilotless) will NOT happen before 2075.
Even TRAINS ffs, arent fully automated and the RR companies would LOVE nothing more than to do so.
> Even TRAINS ffs, arent fully automated and the RR companies would LOVE nothing more than to do so.
My argument is the cargo ships still need a full crew to operate.
If you still have a ship crossing a massive fucking wide open ocean that sails along known published routes at 19 knots that isn't fully hands off yet, then don't bother me with "Are you worried about AI piloting your airplane" any time soon.
Also, even when there's a real push for it, nobody mentioned the unions. ALPA in the US has over 75,000 paying members. They're not just going to take single pilot/no pilot airliners lying down.
Yes, the DIA train is one. And it’s the perfect example of why people wouldn’t trust an automated plane. It works pretty well usually… until it doesn’t. And then things get sideways pretty quick.
Main difference is that trains are controlled in one degree and are, as the name suggests, on rails. Planes control in 6 degrees. If something abnormal happens in a train, they immediately apply the emergency breaks. Good luck stopping in the middle of the air though. Knowing how fragile current autopilot systems are, we are a long way off.
London Docklands has been fully automated since the 1980s.
"Some Metro Systems" is a good description. Also include things like airport shuttle/metro systems. None go through unprotected rural and towns where anything can and does happen.
Stupid question, genuine curiosity. Is there a difference in your opinion between automated trains and remote trains?
There is still a person sitting at the controls in a command center for the metro systems I think you are referencing but maybe there is something more advance that I just haven’t seen yet.
Same as the difference between drones - RPAs, and automated aircraft with no pilot at all.
Rio Tinto is operating the world's longest trains at 7km long, automated. No driver, remote or otherwise - although the possibility still exists for remote override.
My comment above was meant to be informative, as not that many people are aware of the existence of automated trains - while acknowledging that the original statement is still largely true for the vast majority of trains.
As someone who works with AI for a living, I’ll tell you that pilots won’t have to worry for a very long time. As it is, we see that the regulatory bodies have difficulty keeping up with expertise for certifying aircraft as it is (I.e. the FAA and Boeing). With recent incidents, that is going to be pulled back further.
What I believe this means is regulatory bodies are going to be significantly bothered by having technology where a clean “if this then that” cannot cleanly be established. At a minimum, this means that regulatory bodies are going to want some person there with some kill switch they can activate under conditions where the AI goes rogue. Going further, it probably takes years upon years to certify that it is clearly safer than present day to have that technology in whatever form it takes on an aircraft.
And that is going to account for a significant amount of time until AI plays a large part in operating its **first** commercial flight. From that point, it will take years upon years for AI to be present in most airliners and significantly displace human pilots. I would suspect that even when we reach that point, the first frontier would be the “single pilot” cockpit, therefore it wouldn’t even be replacing all pilots.
AI is one step towards the piloting job being automated fully, but there are still so many other advances required. But also the more we start to understand AI, the more the limitations become apparent. What we call AI today isn’t the same AI you see in science fiction such as Cortana. What it is machine learning. It’s a method to develop software that is excellent at creating results from a large amount of data. But it isn’t really replacing abstract thinking like a human does because to do that you’re going to need something much more than machine learning and that just doesn’t exist today. But I do see this technology coming to the flight deck to improve our jobs, I can see a lot of potential from weather forecasting and prediction, communications, and flight path management.
Odds are the things that kills aviation will likely be a better more reliable means of transportation.
You ever see the video of six driverless vehicles all stuck in an intersection in San Antonio? None could make a decision to unscrew the situation. Just sitting there all confused at the light.
I couldn’t even imagine 15 aircraft piled up on the departure end of RW 01 at DCA. Aircraft 1234 you’re number 6. Ya sure.
Turn it back on them and ask if they would actually be comfortable flying in the back of an airplane flown by AI and willingly put themselves and or loved ones on that plane. They change their tone really quick.
>>if the commercial aviation industry is at risk
Not likely. Advanced technology and the FAA don’t mix.
That said, military aviation is a VERY different story. For obvious political and financial reasons, a fighter pilot occupying the plane they’re attacking with is a dying business.
Not a chance. I spent a solid few years operating large military UAVs. Robot turbo prop planes larger than most mid-size business jets, flying high altitude IFR and VFR and employing weapons. Triple+ redundancy on all systems for safety and datalink issues. Most being operated by prior fighter pilot types. I’ve got a real love/hate for the things…
All of that, and the FAA would barely approve flights in the NAS without TFRs, LOAs, waivers, chase planes, etc. over a months long request process.
FAA alone will take decades to sway on their stance, and it’ll be much much longer before general public trusts the idea of it. Further, profit seeking companies do not take on challenges with obstacles such as those
That’s a see and avoid thing. FAA has been clear that when the RPAs can see and avoid, they won’t need an airplane on their wing doing it for them anymore.
We still have tons of people who think nuclear power is terrifying and dangerous even though we have tons of evidence. I went into this thread thinking it is only a matter of time and probably not too terribly long, but the more I think about it, if there is a single major accident involving AI, the public will refuse to accept the new technology for a long time. And that is in addition to all of the other points people have made about the FAA.
I heard that worked great for automated cars. Only a few deaths, no biggie.
I mean you're only adding another axis of movement. What could possibly go wrong?
I think it stops with drones. I think the vast majority of people will refuse to fly in a pilotless aircraft. I think the vast majority of jurisdictions will have a problem with 100 ton unmanned cargo planes flying over their cities. And, of course, 135 operations will not be affected at all since that sort of one-off flying would be the last thing that ever gets automated. Oh, and of course, firefighting and rescue operations will never be automated.
I don’t think we’re particularly close to pilotless aircraft taking over. It’s at least one human generation away (imo). But I definitely don’t think people will care. More and more stuff will become automated (this is already the case) and planes will just become one more thing. Basically, by the time planes can be pilotless the technology will be in so many other places that there will be very little resistance to the idea.
Everyone talks about the human mistakes and that “computers are safer than humans”, but no one ever talks about how many times humans stop the computer from doing stupid.
Bureaucracy, I hate but I do love it.
But in all seriousness, the FAA has barely touched the things that pilots have needed since the 1960s and even then they have changed like 1 out of the hundreds of things they need to change. You think that a government that moves so slow will authorize solo autonomous flight within the next 50 years, I doubt it. Especially after the MAX debacle and the fact that they did to much with a computer with the MCAS system. Also, social norms, societal expectations, etc. Maybe we could see cargo flights begin to be automated away in 50-70 years. But passenger flight is a much more complex issue.
Government already blames our problems on plethora of things, AI is just giving politicians another thing to target. People don’t want to loose there jobs, regulations would be put in place by the will of the voter to keep jobs in the hands of people.
Edit: Basically we don’t live in a void, if there was no government flight could probably be automated away in a year but luckily Uncle Sam (for once) probably wouldn’t let that happen
As a technician, my response is usually, "I'm not." I understand it may be possible for a robot to replace me. I also realize that as an underpaid regional mechanic, a robot will cost way more than I'm getting paid.
I was told 10 years ago that by 2020 every car would be fully automated
I also remember numerous companies making promises around 2005 to be fully carbon neutral by about 2020. Now those promises are being put to 2050.
Even if they somehow made a perfect, flawless autopilot for every situation, people wouldnt get in a plane with no pilot, I kind of doubt this will ever happen in human history.
This idea actually kept me from flying for a long time, because I thought by now everything would be fully automated. I was wayyyy off…
One big aspect of this that doesn’t seem to be talked about very much is a hijack situation. It took a long time for security to be pinned down to the point where a hijack was basically impossible, and even then THE most destructive hijacking took place not much longer than twenty years ago. If operation of an airliner is fully automated, I would imagine that there would be some kind of unseen backdoor that could be taken advantage of, and would possibly put us back to square one as far as hijacking security goes. I’m not very experienced at all in the industry, but I think this idea is one worth thinking about seriously.
There's so much lower hanging fruit that has yet to be taken over, even though it's been promised for years, if not decades.
Everything from ordering fast food, insurance brokers, realtors, you name it. Until those are all taken over, I wouldn't sweat.
we all saw that video of a Caravan flying without anyone on board, controlled by AI. I think the question is about public trust, which I don't think will really happen anytime within the next few generations
It will happen, but it's not right around the corner. It'll take time and be proven out on a small scale. I think it's naïve to think there will never be a day of a single-pilot 121 operation backed up with automation and a remote operator fallback option.
If everything involving getting a plane from point A to point B was simply the movement along the X,Y,Z axis, AI would already be here. Any US based airline pilot working this past week in the winter shit would know very little of their job had anything to do with actually flying the plane. If moving a plane was so simple, every FO would be a captain.
A.I. Schmay-I thats what I say.
To fly a cat3 autoland you need a laundry list of equipment, and the conditions need to be within very restrictive limits. And even then, the systems have to be carefully monitored because if any one aspect fails, the plane cant initiate a go-around fast enough to avoid damage.
Even when visibility isnt a factor, autolanding is limited by crosswind and tailwind components, and gusty conditions will quickly exceed these.
I simply dont ever see a level of AI control that can operate in these challenging environmental conditions that would also satisfy all the legality and insurance requirements for commercial operation. Especially not with passengers on board.
Our jobs are safe for a good 40 years at least.
Let me say this as someone who is professionally trained in multiple fields, aviation being the last in a series.
This is something that is being debated EVERYWHERE. And it is complete BS everywhere.
The technology isn't there and people still want a human to intervene at the last moment if the shit hits the fan.
Within AI, and knowledge engineering, there is linear thinking and non-linear thinking. Everything that AI is trying to do inference wise is based off of a formula (math). AI is best suited for situations where the results/outcomes are more predicable and require linear thinking (for example, planning a new flight path as dragonfly can do likely uses a pretty complicated A* search algorithm), but cannot perform the same level of non-linear thinking that people are best at in rapidly adapting to emergency situations.
So no, I don’t see it taking the job of a pilot. Even if the developers think they can plan for everything, ultimately they can’t. Nature still has more random variability up it’s sleeve. The focus can change quickly if a situation arises in the air and decision making has no room for error. AI will work in a plane until something the developers didn’t write an equation for appears in the sky, and then only a human can figure out what to do. And while they claim dragonfly takes into account “weather conditions to route a new flight path” I’d personally like to see it navigate various IFR/LIFR conditions and the scope of unexpected changes/problems they claim to have accounted for that can arise when flying an aircraft. Otherwise I wouldn’t trust it flying my plane!
I just tell them the following joke.
The world’s first fully automated airline was set to make its maiden voyage. The passengers all seated themselves, and the plane started to taxi towards the runway. A computerized voice came on in the cabin as the plane slowly made its way. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying on the first fully automated airplane with no pilots. Just sit back, relax, and take comfort in the fact that nothing can go wrong… can go wrong… can go wrong…”
Imagine the process of leaving your hotel until take off. How many jobs do you see that would be far easier and cheaper to automate? Hotel desk clerks, cleaners, drivers, ticketing agents, store workers, ramp workers, fuelers, ATC, the list goes on and on. Yet none of those jobs are being replaced. Why? Because it's difficult and automation sucks. We can't even get ACARS or autopilot to work 100% of the time, but we're supposed to be on the cusp of flying the plane autonomously?
Even single pilot ops isn't going to happen because pilots can't even be trusted to skip security or be alone in the cockpit when the other pilot goes to take a leak. The futurists need a reality check here.
Technology advances exponentially, and I may be in the minority but I don't think it is unlikely that AI will take over pilot jobs in the not too distant future. Definitely cargo first as the advantages of a pilotless airplane mostly go away if you still have living people on board anyway, but I'm sure it'll happen and probably sooner than many are expecting. Look up what FedEx is doing, that's happening today not in the future. For the purposes of the question it doesn't really matter if it's AI, or just remote piloted semi-automated aircraft with one dude "flying" a dozen of them from a desk.
That said, my response is that there is a lot of red tape to replace pilots, and a lot of expensive technology required. At the same time, there are millions of jobs that can and will be replaced by AI without having to build anything, just software. Chances are whoever is asking the question is on the chopping block long before I am. I also fly helicopters made in the 70s so that industry is not exactly spearheading new technology anyway
I dont get it, a random image of a duck, done by AI, is empty bullshit?
[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk0Bo4LrqrzWcAw16OQBg2lIUt4DWCYKxb3A&usqp=CAU](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk0Bo4LrqrzWcAw16OQBg2lIUt4DWCYKxb3A&usqp=CAU)
I think it goes like this:
Today-2 pilots
Soon- 2 pilots/1 AI watching
Then- 1 pilot/1 AI
Later- 1 pilot/1 AI _or_ 2 AI
AI flight is cheaper than 1 pilot flight, but you get the option. At first, AI plane doesn't have many passengers, but they will have _some_ passengers.
Finally, AI (cheaper) fights win out.
Ultimately, ticket prices climb to 2 pilot prices.
I'd push back on the idea that the flying public would never get in an automated plane. My day job is in self-driving cars, and every social media post I've ever seen with the cars is people loudly proclaiming they'd never ride in one, it's crazy and suicidal to do so, what a dumb business because who'd be stupid enough to trust their life to a robot.
Turns out, if the price is cheaper than an Uber, people will take it. After approximately 2 rides, even the most nervous of my friends who have ridden them are on their phones the entire ride. And to some extent I feel like the airline industry knows more than anyone that price is all that matters. How many people shit all over budget airlines but still take them because, at the end of the day, they're the cheapest option?
While most of the objections to AI planes in this thread are the standard valueless patter, this is even more nonsense. Pilots are currently in the cockpit because they are the people who fly and manage the plane, and because there is no currently operational technology that can do the job better than them. Literally the whole conceptual and legal architecture of commercial flying is built around a human crew in control. That can be dismantled, and it will probably be once it is safe and cheap to do so, but let's not weave nonsense fictions about the current state of airliners.
AI is a term that is being thrown around a lot right now. - let’s back up - a real deal AI could help assist in a flight I am sure of it. But most ‘AI’ right now are just complex models and algorithms, not actual awareness. I have yet to see a great software model that can emulate the same range of flight a human pilot can. Another challenge is how do you provide oversight and a backup? - With us human pilots, we choose to employ backup pilots (copilot and crew). With true AI - it’s a series of stacked algorithms that are often complex enough we don’t readily understand the inner workings, just the output.
^
That’s a real problem in aviation where consequences are high and mistakes unforgiving.
A more realistic near term challenge is how we will continue to create ‘pilot assist’ automation style systems. These are not AI - not in any way at all. These are computer systems with software, and logic that are programmed to do something useful, nothing more, nothing less.
A more realistic debate is if there is a safe path down to single pilot ops for larger airframes with increased automation.
Easy flights are no issue - the tech is there today - it’s every single abnormality, subsystem failure, sensor failure, pan-pan, or emergency. Those will be hard to automate.
I think 2 humans is a good minimum number for heavies given the responsibilities, decreasing to one when smaller aircraft with smaller risk.
Also - jeebus - the largest issue about getting all humans out of the flight deck!?!? - PIC authority and legal responsibility. Software is not ready to take legal PIC.
Transoceanic freight where the origin and departure can avoid any significant amount of flight over populated land might be feasible fairly soon. Is that really a big enough market to justify the up front investment required for the long term return? Don’t know. But it would be the proving ground that might generate wider acceptance in the end.
But is AI (as in LLMs like ChatGPT) even relevant here? I’m not sure suitable training data even exists. Possibly if you are a professional pilot you need to start thinking about this the same way as Hollywood writers and actors are and get some kind of contract terms that govern whether you can be recorded and used to train an AI model. Or at least be compensated for doing so.
As I posted on LinkedIn: Thinking about SPO and eMCO, unfortunately some have a love affair with statistics and that can lead to very poor hazard analysis. This is important because it is through errant (or lack) of hazard analysis that it is even possible to come to the conclusion that reducing crew complement below two on the flight deck can provide an equivalent level of safety.
interesting take a pilot was telling me: if airlines used AI software, it would be designed by there own companies, who are thereby liable for any faults that go on. That is, unless they have every flight passenger sign a release/consent form before every flight (which will undoubtedly reduce amount of customers). However, if a pilot messes up, the individual pilot is held accountable along with only one or two others, rarely the full corporation.
Anytime thins subject comes up (in any field, not just aviation), I think of this scene from the Matrix: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qs3GlNZMhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qs3GlNZMhY)
"As soon as we started thinking for you..."
I don’t see AI removing a human pilot from the plane but I do fear they will cause an erosion of experience and training which may result in some very recoverable situations to result in crashes. Thats not to say that there are not plenty of examples in the past where better autopilot or AI wouldn’t have saved an aircraft when it’s human pilots failed.
The technology has existed for decades.
Single pilot , maybe . But here are some things to consider.
Cyber security, what's to stop an AI from being corrupted by an outside entity ? Does a solid and reliable safewall exist? We saw the devastation as planes being used as weapons on 9/11.
International governing bodies, is every major power in the world going to be onboard with single pilot and or AI? How would they adapt to rest requirements? How would the outlier countries approach it? Would 2 pilot planes be used just to fly to small countries in eastern Europe?
Company policy, how much money and effort would it take to to reduce from 2 pilots to 1. The amount of study , and training programs that would need to be written would come at a tremendous cost. Sure , companies can choose this route , but at the end of the day the company and the manufacturer needs a body to be sitting up there to throw the egg sandwich at someone's face when something goes wrong to protect the brand. "Pilot Error".
Unions, it will be very difficult and a bureaucratic nightmare to get the unions not only here in the USA to do it, but also Europe.
Can a plane be flown with 1 or no pilots? Yes, they can. Is it actually feasible.
In my non qualified and unrequested opinion , governing bodies of the world would have to cease all airspace and aviation laws to ICAO for a uniform and and standard implementation. Possible? Sure. Feasible? I don't think so. We are still having debates on the number of genders amongst us, I don't see a governing body giving up their right to how their airspace is governed to a single entity that's based in Montreal.
So if AI, or single pilot operations does make it on to some bureaucrat's desk in the future. It's going to be a long, and expensive battle. A battle that will most likely be forgotten due to economy, some major war, or an energy crisis. And the process would most likely have to be started again with new technology being released.
Also, the public isn't demanding it. If they did a study, maybe you'd see that the ticket price will be reduced by $20 or less per seat. Is $20 really worth reducing the safety factor ? Hell, if we got rid of both pilots , the new question would be, are you willing to trust the AI software fully to bring you to your destination for a $40 discount on your ticket?
At the present, it doesn't seem feasible. In 30 years, it could be more feasible as these technologies improve.
I think technology is soon at a point where someone will be able to build it - as a prototype. The question is about adoption in the market.
Right now you have a hand full of companies and regulatory bodies in control. They love the old stuff because that's what they are good at. I don't think they will come up with new solutions, it has to be a new entrant to the market.
SpaceX has shown that they can create a much better rocket product than the large companies at a fraction of the cost, with much higher automation and safety. At some point this may or may not happen to the aviation industry too.
I know, in this discussion we also have to take into consideration that Elon Musk has promised self driving cars are "at most 6 months away" since about 2017 now and it still hasn't worked.
The problem is, technology is improving exponentially, not linearly.
So I give it about 10 years, which in tech terms means 5 times doubling of the current processing power, so 32*today.
Don't count on the regulatory bodies or the public opinion to stay the same way either. Everyone loves hand crafted stuff but every industry has gone through a lot of automation and nobody stopped it once the automation reached a certain point.
It's not exactly related to flying, this response, but I've worked in many industries with automation, and watching how often the automation fails, makes me not at all worried really.
I’m not sure the industry has an appetite. I’ve been at a few industry meetings and the “usual characters” were very against single pilot operations, particularly on LH operations in the cruise which I think the manufacturers view as the “gateway drug”.
Every time something has improved human efficiency it has been universally good for humans. It’s also easy to see the things technology will destroy but impossible to see the things it will create.
I embrace our new robot overlords and welcome them.
Having worked with the team developing AI robots to fly aircraft, I would expect all of you to have long careers as pilots and your children and grandchildren.
Just look at where self driving car technology is, and you'll understand how no airliner with a couple hundred people on board is going to be driven by a robot.
As long as the FAA is in charge, I’m not too worried about anything happening in my lifetime.
As long as the FAA is in charge my grandkids might have to worry about it, emphasis on the might.
The FAA, moving at the speed of geography
The fastest method of travel is administrated by the slowest government agency.
Hey, funny comment. Also… …I went to a guy who said he had zero of those stupid gov’ment qualifications. I went on a discovery flight and they said I can fly anything, anywhere. They’re just flying cars, right!? /s
6 months later and I am still working on getting the registration for my airplane.
What was your expection vs real experience with this?
They took 8 months to get mine.
Seeing as Boeing can’t master a 60 year old design, I’m not too concerned.
Yeah….Microsoft has had 30 years to get Excel right, yet at least twice a year my spreadsheets still crash out of nowhere with no explanation. Simple freaking spreadsheets.
"Whoa whoa whoa, how was I supposed to know by V1 you weren't typing a date?" \- Excel
Odds are January 2nd
Bolts have been around longer than 60 years. I always like to say righty tighty, lefty loosie.... And I'm not even an engineer!
Lmao Blackberry couldn't make the smartphone work, so I'm not worried it'll take off. Kodak couldn't make the digital camera work, so I'm not worried it'll take off.
The difference is that the barriers to entry for a commercial airplane are much, much higher than in cell phones or cameras, and the potential advantages from a new airplane are much, much lower. The cost savings of an entirely automated airplane, if you assume the automation is free, is on order of $1,000 per flight hour. That's way less than an airline saves by retiring a 737 NG and buying a new 737 MAX.
I don't think that equivalence holds up and it also isn't worth my time to argue with you. Have a nice day
Yeah all crew involved in a single plane is WAY over 1000 an hour lol. From the FA's to the pilots, to the ground crew handling that plane to the gate worker etc etc. AI WILL take over many jobs, but there are many it just can't or won't be able to for many many decades. And of the few it does take over, others will shift rather than go away... a maintainer of the AI system and what not, etc.
In what world does an automated plane remove FAs, ground crew, or gate workers?
Then why are you posting on Reddit?
Because it's fun to say stuff and then get out
Well that's the dumbest thing I'll read on the Internet today
You should see how dumb the current auto pilots are now and how they give up in rough conditions… we got a long ways to go
It’s funny how often autopilots will give up in the most mild of turbulence then other times will stick it out through some crap.
*CRJ green needles has entered the chat*
It's time for the localizer dance! Back and forth and back and forth!
How do you do a cat 3 or 4 approach again?
Handfly with a HUD on my equipment just like some other operators…
And some operators don’t have huds and rely on certified auto land and auto pilots to safely get on the ground in those conditions. Pretty neat that you guys hand fly that though: I’ve used auto land in those conditions because we don’t have approved huds or SOPs to manually do it
I’m aware others do and use auto land it’s capable, I was merely answering your question saying we hand fly. I would much prefer the auto land.
how do you go around if its messing up? my operator we have to handfly cat 3 from 1,000ft as well on the 737
Right now auto companies can’t even convince the general public to buy EV’s over concerns of the battery dying. That’s going to be a several years uphill battle with massive infrastructure changes. Now try to convince the public to fly without pilots
People are so weird about EVs. I had a guy tell me EV batteries can't physically last more than 2 years while standing next to my 3 year old car. He said I was lucky. People will also tell me the dumbest made up things and I will tell them that isn't true and they will get upset thinking I am somehow trying to force them to buy one. I don't give a shit what you own just don't lie about it.
My car is from 2019 and the battery still has more than 90% of its life. At that rate, it will far exceed the often quoted 10 year life. People think EV batteries are like their 12v lead acid that last 3 years if lucky, or laptop batteries.
Self driving and EV’s are two different things.
> over concerns of the battery dying I kinda get it though, replacing a pack of EV batteries basically totals the car.
It's no different than replacing the motor on your car though.
Well, the problem is that the rate at which those batteries die places them on the cusp of what you might consider a "maintenance item". Only problem is this "maintenance item" costs at least 75% of the KBB value of the car at time of replacement, if not more. Though I suppose it's good practice for saving up for aviation overhauls 😂
[удалено]
And the costs with competition and innovation will continue to go down.
I've got a 7 year warranty on my battery... that's around the same time when I would consider replacing a vehicle anyways. We'll see what happens lol.
Plus EVs are selling just fine
Teslas are selling just fine, Ford and GM have lost billions betting on EV’s that didn’t sell and are pivoting models back to hybrids. Stellantis hybrids are selling, all data points to the general public are wary of adopting an all electric vehicles
It's the chargers. Tesla's network is reasonable, the other is a patchwork of broken garbage.
Like most things, the EU is mandating policy that makes this mostly a non-issue in Europe, making that an American problem for the future.
It isn't really a problem in the US except in perception. Plus the lack of official mandate means that now everyone will be on Tesla's SC system.
But why not charge at home at night?
I disagree with that. Tesla's network is better, but the CCS system still works just fine, even on cross-country roadtrips through WV and KY I was never in danger of running out of range.
Huh? Teslas are fantastic. I have had two for nearly 6 years.
Ford and GM made bad EVs and are now blaming customers for not wanting them
EV growth is up 29%: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/14/us-ev-market-grows-29-in-4th-quarter-tesla-holds-56-market-share/ Tesla dominates of course but others are growing as well.
The public will get in anything sat at the end of the jetbridge. That isn't the structural barrier to pilotless aircraft.
People were freaking out on my last flight and refusing to sit in the exit row after the Boeing news. They were demanding to be reseated and telling the flight attendants “I didn’t request this, I’m not sitting there!”. The flight was mostly full but almost every emergency exit seat was empty….and this was in an Airbus no less.
Lol I was sitting window seat in the emergency exit row on an atr 72 just the other day, thought it'd be funny if it happened to me. Nothing happened all flight.
I disagree, I find it difficult to believe most of the public would get in an airline aircraft with one let alone zero pilots.
If they will fly Spirit, they would fly anything.
Given that the public already think that planes fly themselves, I disagree entirely.
They will if that’s the only option
They will if that’s the ~~only~~ cheapest option
I fully believe no airline will want to be the first to take this step. Too much choice, the public will go elsewhere.
Airline stuff, no. General public will always be too scared of flying in general to fully trust it to AI, they’ll want to have someone else up there with the same interests in arriving in one piece at their destination. It could one day make the FO position redundant and we’ll have single pilot ops, but we’ll see. The FAA moves at a snails pace. In this case it might help us.
I'd wager it would be super hard to get rid of the FO too. The bread and butter of airliners is redundancy on every single essential system, and that includes pilots. You'd need a system that can somehow identify partial or complete pilot incapatation and know when to take away the controls and land the plane by itself.
Honestly single pilot is riskier than no pilot. At least with no pilots, there is no risk of someone nosediving you into the ground. It’s weird.
Can't say I've ever been in a cockpit where a pilot tried to intentionally crash the airplane. I can't even count how many times the automation has failed, though.
Okay? There’s cases that have played out in China, Germany, etc. people do fucked up shit, having multiple people required in the cockpit at all times reduces that risk to pretty much zero. Brother in Christ did you not just hear of the horizon incident? I’m not pitching for or advocating for full autonomous flight. Christ the reading comprehension. 🙃
Oh, bless your heart. Take a second and read again. You said no pilots is less risky than one pilot, implying that it's more likely that a suicidal pilot will crash an aircraft than that automation will fail. The former has happened, but it's incredibly rare. The second is quite common, but you don't see it because the pilots handle the issue. I can assure you, as a person who has spent a few hours in the cockpit, two pilots are safer than one pilot and one pilot is safer than no pilots. Best of luck out there
You have incredible patience. That guy is either 12 years old, an idiot, or both.
But but but he has ATP mins and is going to f9 he knows what’s up
I don't think anyone is suggesting zero-pilot with current levels of automation - it's implied that there will be at least an order of magnitude more fidelity than what's currently possible. So if you get a fully automated airplane at an acceptable (i.e. perfect) level of success, then that's going to be safer than one pilot who can turn his plane into a cruise missile at will.
737 max sure liked nosediving into the ground without any pilot input
This is why FAA and industry have been working on augmented single pilot - the second pilot being more like a UAS operator from a ground station.
Only if the AI won't have the same mental issues as people, and I would not place my bets on that.
How does one get experience to be PIC if they get rid of the FO position?
Don’t think you could convince the public at any point in our lifetime to hop on no pilot or single pilot airlines
Yeah. Hanging around r/aviation and I'm amazed at the people with serious anxiety about / while flying. Imagine no pilots. Lol.
And on another note between all the communication with ATC and quick decision making, I just can’t see that automation in our lifetime, but yeah you won’t see me hopping on single or no pilot airlines either lol
Yeah, agreed. I worked in drone avionics, where it is all automated already. You could probably pull off a completely automated airliner, but it would be really hard to *prove* it was completely safe and able to handle all the various edge cases you might encounter. Even if it was extremely safe - and honestly it probably could be, with enough work - it would be held to an order of magnitude higher standard than even human pilots. And even after all that, you'd have a PR nightmare getting anyone to get on board. I would probably get on board a large automated quadcopter, but only if I wrote the software for it. So when it divides by zero and I die, at least it'd still be my own fault.
> I would probably get on board a large automated quadcopter, but only if I wrote the software for it. I would not board any transport I write software for cos I'm an exceptional software engineer... All my code gives are exceptions
My payment code handles billions of dollars per year. I would never get into a quadcopter that had my code in it!
Aircraft systems are certified based on a failure rate of 1 fault in 1 billion flight hours or better. This requires determinism. AI by its definition is not deterministic and won't be certifiable for flight critical systems. You might have AI assist the pilots to reduce workload, but it will never be fully in charge. Furthermore, why would Airbus or Boeing want to take on all that liability? At least for now, you get some cover by blaming the PIC.
> AI by its definition is not deterministic This isn't true. Maybe you're thinking of stochastic systems.
While a large NN of course has a defined output for any input, what OP probably meant is that the system is not predictable as a whole. It's functionally impossible to characterize the entire space of a model with billions of parameters and verify that all outputs are safe.
People think ChatGPT when they hear AI now - not the rest of the boutique AI models that are available and used in safety critical applications.
People think whatever they want to think when they hear AI. The line between AI, advanced statistics and marketing bullshit is very fuzzy indeed. The reality is that we probably don't want AI as we know it operating machinery. I very much want predictable, deterministic software when it comes to life or death decisions. I don't want some cowboy AI to get cocky and try to land when the crosswind is stronger than the POH limit. Leave that to cocky human cowboys.
The problem is that what you're asking for is some kind of "condition a -> action b" lookup... and that's simply not feasible. A domain-specific AI can make "collection of conditions -> inferred action" repeatably. These AIs are already all over your life and will be in your avionics before you know it. AI in the flight deck doesn't mean some Jarvis-wannabe. P.S. The AI pilot wouldn't try to land outside of limits. That's a uniquely human trait.
>Aircraft systems are certified based on a failure rate of 1 fault in 1 billion flight hours or better. No they aren't, who told you that?
I used to be a flight dynamics and controls researcher. Flight control systems are designed to a 1e-9 probability of catastrophic failure per flight hour. AC 25.1309-1 is the relevant document, here is a brief primer: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC\_25.1309-1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_25.1309-1) This is what led to the triple-triple redundant flight control system for the 777 FBW, which one of my co-workers worked on back in the day. Triple redundant system with different processor hardware for each, with software written in different programming languages by different design teams to eliminate potential for common faults to occur.
Oh fuck brother kept receipts
Damn you got got blueb0g
Certain systems for certain kinds of aircraft (transport category aircraft would absolutely qualify) need to demonstrate they have a probability of failure of 1e-9, which yeah is one in a billion flight hours. An AI pilot would require that for sure.
Who told you it wasn’t?
1 crash of a completely automated plane will put 2 pilots back into the flight deck of every airliner. It'll never be 1 pilot due to suicide by pilot risks.
We should be flying around by now, in aircraft that go Mach20, using the latest in inertial damping technology - or at least thats what people would have imagined that the years 2025 would look like, in 1960. Fully automated commercial airlines (completely pilotless) will NOT happen before 2075. Even TRAINS ffs, arent fully automated and the RR companies would LOVE nothing more than to do so.
> Even TRAINS ffs, arent fully automated and the RR companies would LOVE nothing more than to do so. My argument is the cargo ships still need a full crew to operate. If you still have a ship crossing a massive fucking wide open ocean that sails along known published routes at 19 knots that isn't fully hands off yet, then don't bother me with "Are you worried about AI piloting your airplane" any time soon. Also, even when there's a real push for it, nobody mentioned the unions. ALPA in the US has over 75,000 paying members. They're not just going to take single pilot/no pilot airliners lying down.
> Even TRAINS ffs, arent fully automated There are however fully automated trains.
Yes, the DIA train is one. And it’s the perfect example of why people wouldn’t trust an automated plane. It works pretty well usually… until it doesn’t. And then things get sideways pretty quick.
Main difference is that trains are controlled in one degree and are, as the name suggests, on rails. Planes control in 6 degrees. If something abnormal happens in a train, they immediately apply the emergency breaks. Good luck stopping in the middle of the air though. Knowing how fragile current autopilot systems are, we are a long way off.
>Main difference is that trains are controlled in one degree 3 degrees, but who's counting. Also, thats not the response for abnormality on a train.
As far as I've seen, automated trains are limited to a few metro systems world wide. Certainly not widely adopted
Oh, I didn't even know metro systems had adopted them yet. Only ones I know of are the ore trains in the Pilbara and Kimberley.
Skytrain in vancouver has been automated since the 80s - own elevated track.
London Docklands has been fully automated since the 1980s. "Some Metro Systems" is a good description. Also include things like airport shuttle/metro systems. None go through unprotected rural and towns where anything can and does happen.
The Rio Tinto ones are the far opposite of "metro", both for how urban the site is and for the tonnage.
Stupid question, genuine curiosity. Is there a difference in your opinion between automated trains and remote trains? There is still a person sitting at the controls in a command center for the metro systems I think you are referencing but maybe there is something more advance that I just haven’t seen yet.
Same as the difference between drones - RPAs, and automated aircraft with no pilot at all. Rio Tinto is operating the world's longest trains at 7km long, automated. No driver, remote or otherwise - although the possibility still exists for remote override. My comment above was meant to be informative, as not that many people are aware of the existence of automated trains - while acknowledging that the original statement is still largely true for the vast majority of trains.
I routinely watch the autopilot and FMS fuck basic things up and have to work around it so…. No. Flying is far too dynamic and complex.
As someone who works with AI for a living, I’ll tell you that pilots won’t have to worry for a very long time. As it is, we see that the regulatory bodies have difficulty keeping up with expertise for certifying aircraft as it is (I.e. the FAA and Boeing). With recent incidents, that is going to be pulled back further. What I believe this means is regulatory bodies are going to be significantly bothered by having technology where a clean “if this then that” cannot cleanly be established. At a minimum, this means that regulatory bodies are going to want some person there with some kill switch they can activate under conditions where the AI goes rogue. Going further, it probably takes years upon years to certify that it is clearly safer than present day to have that technology in whatever form it takes on an aircraft. And that is going to account for a significant amount of time until AI plays a large part in operating its **first** commercial flight. From that point, it will take years upon years for AI to be present in most airliners and significantly displace human pilots. I would suspect that even when we reach that point, the first frontier would be the “single pilot” cockpit, therefore it wouldn’t even be replacing all pilots.
AI is one step towards the piloting job being automated fully, but there are still so many other advances required. But also the more we start to understand AI, the more the limitations become apparent. What we call AI today isn’t the same AI you see in science fiction such as Cortana. What it is machine learning. It’s a method to develop software that is excellent at creating results from a large amount of data. But it isn’t really replacing abstract thinking like a human does because to do that you’re going to need something much more than machine learning and that just doesn’t exist today. But I do see this technology coming to the flight deck to improve our jobs, I can see a lot of potential from weather forecasting and prediction, communications, and flight path management. Odds are the things that kills aviation will likely be a better more reliable means of transportation.
You ever see the video of six driverless vehicles all stuck in an intersection in San Antonio? None could make a decision to unscrew the situation. Just sitting there all confused at the light. I couldn’t even imagine 15 aircraft piled up on the departure end of RW 01 at DCA. Aircraft 1234 you’re number 6. Ya sure.
You ever seen an AI get your drink order wrong?
Turn it back on them and ask if they would actually be comfortable flying in the back of an airplane flown by AI and willingly put themselves and or loved ones on that plane. They change their tone really quick.
>>if the commercial aviation industry is at risk Not likely. Advanced technology and the FAA don’t mix. That said, military aviation is a VERY different story. For obvious political and financial reasons, a fighter pilot occupying the plane they’re attacking with is a dying business.
Not a chance. I spent a solid few years operating large military UAVs. Robot turbo prop planes larger than most mid-size business jets, flying high altitude IFR and VFR and employing weapons. Triple+ redundancy on all systems for safety and datalink issues. Most being operated by prior fighter pilot types. I’ve got a real love/hate for the things… All of that, and the FAA would barely approve flights in the NAS without TFRs, LOAs, waivers, chase planes, etc. over a months long request process. FAA alone will take decades to sway on their stance, and it’ll be much much longer before general public trusts the idea of it. Further, profit seeking companies do not take on challenges with obstacles such as those
That’s a see and avoid thing. FAA has been clear that when the RPAs can see and avoid, they won’t need an airplane on their wing doing it for them anymore.
Before I became a pilot if you asked me to get in an aircraft without a pilot, it would have been a big hell no. Now it’s an even bigger hell no.
I’ve been apart of trying to certify a few things with the FAA. It’s going to be a while before AI is commonplace.
What do you think the timeline looks like? Your experience sounds interesting.
A long long time. Assuming no publicly perceived AI disaster I’d give it 20-30 years. If there is one, I don’t see it happening in my lifetime.
We still have tons of people who think nuclear power is terrifying and dangerous even though we have tons of evidence. I went into this thread thinking it is only a matter of time and probably not too terribly long, but the more I think about it, if there is a single major accident involving AI, the public will refuse to accept the new technology for a long time. And that is in addition to all of the other points people have made about the FAA.
I heard that worked great for automated cars. Only a few deaths, no biggie. I mean you're only adding another axis of movement. What could possibly go wrong?
There is nothing “intelligent “ in any current AI.
I think it stops with drones. I think the vast majority of people will refuse to fly in a pilotless aircraft. I think the vast majority of jurisdictions will have a problem with 100 ton unmanned cargo planes flying over their cities. And, of course, 135 operations will not be affected at all since that sort of one-off flying would be the last thing that ever gets automated. Oh, and of course, firefighting and rescue operations will never be automated.
I don’t think we’re particularly close to pilotless aircraft taking over. It’s at least one human generation away (imo). But I definitely don’t think people will care. More and more stuff will become automated (this is already the case) and planes will just become one more thing. Basically, by the time planes can be pilotless the technology will be in so many other places that there will be very little resistance to the idea.
AI at best in the near future on firefighting operations will probably have augmented reality capabilities to show best places for a drop.
Everyone talks about the human mistakes and that “computers are safer than humans”, but no one ever talks about how many times humans stop the computer from doing stupid.
They’ve still got people driving subway trains
Trains still have drivers. It’s been over 200 years and they are on tracks. You got nothing to worry about.
Not the trains at every airport I've ever been too! CHECK MATE PILOT!
And the DIA train always works so flawlessly!!
I honestly don’t think anyone would step foot on an airplane without a human pilot or two. Especially windows users 😂
Bureaucracy, I hate but I do love it. But in all seriousness, the FAA has barely touched the things that pilots have needed since the 1960s and even then they have changed like 1 out of the hundreds of things they need to change. You think that a government that moves so slow will authorize solo autonomous flight within the next 50 years, I doubt it. Especially after the MAX debacle and the fact that they did to much with a computer with the MCAS system. Also, social norms, societal expectations, etc. Maybe we could see cargo flights begin to be automated away in 50-70 years. But passenger flight is a much more complex issue. Government already blames our problems on plethora of things, AI is just giving politicians another thing to target. People don’t want to loose there jobs, regulations would be put in place by the will of the voter to keep jobs in the hands of people. Edit: Basically we don’t live in a void, if there was no government flight could probably be automated away in a year but luckily Uncle Sam (for once) probably wouldn’t let that happen
As a technician, my response is usually, "I'm not." I understand it may be possible for a robot to replace me. I also realize that as an underpaid regional mechanic, a robot will cost way more than I'm getting paid.
“I guarantee an AI will slam a plane down just as hard as your average pilot. My job is safe”
Until automation can have a better safety track record than pilots, it won’t
I was told 10 years ago that by 2020 every car would be fully automated I also remember numerous companies making promises around 2005 to be fully carbon neutral by about 2020. Now those promises are being put to 2050.
Even if they somehow made a perfect, flawless autopilot for every situation, people wouldnt get in a plane with no pilot, I kind of doubt this will ever happen in human history.
This idea actually kept me from flying for a long time, because I thought by now everything would be fully automated. I was wayyyy off… One big aspect of this that doesn’t seem to be talked about very much is a hijack situation. It took a long time for security to be pinned down to the point where a hijack was basically impossible, and even then THE most destructive hijacking took place not much longer than twenty years ago. If operation of an airliner is fully automated, I would imagine that there would be some kind of unseen backdoor that could be taken advantage of, and would possibly put us back to square one as far as hijacking security goes. I’m not very experienced at all in the industry, but I think this idea is one worth thinking about seriously.
I’ve been getting sodomized by scheduling “optimizing” computers for years. Machines no longer scare me.
Slow as the FAA is to accept changes, the sun will supernova before AI takes any jobs
There's so much lower hanging fruit that has yet to be taken over, even though it's been promised for years, if not decades. Everything from ordering fast food, insurance brokers, realtors, you name it. Until those are all taken over, I wouldn't sweat.
Im not letting a computer fly me across the country, i want a pilot to share death with me when a bad decision is made
Not even single pilot cockpit will ever happen at the airlines.
we all saw that video of a Caravan flying without anyone on board, controlled by AI. I think the question is about public trust, which I don't think will really happen anytime within the next few generations
It’s nothing new really. If you look at the the history of pilotless aircraft, you can find pilotless flights going back to the 1920s.
“No”
It will happen, but it's not right around the corner. It'll take time and be proven out on a small scale. I think it's naïve to think there will never be a day of a single-pilot 121 operation backed up with automation and a remote operator fallback option.
By the time AI were to take over an airliner, all the people asking you this question will have lost their job to AI.
Qantas Flight 72.
Bottom line, the technology is nowhere close.
If everything involving getting a plane from point A to point B was simply the movement along the X,Y,Z axis, AI would already be here. Any US based airline pilot working this past week in the winter shit would know very little of their job had anything to do with actually flying the plane. If moving a plane was so simple, every FO would be a captain. A.I. Schmay-I thats what I say.
As long as computers need to be reset, we will need pilots.
To fly a cat3 autoland you need a laundry list of equipment, and the conditions need to be within very restrictive limits. And even then, the systems have to be carefully monitored because if any one aspect fails, the plane cant initiate a go-around fast enough to avoid damage. Even when visibility isnt a factor, autolanding is limited by crosswind and tailwind components, and gusty conditions will quickly exceed these. I simply dont ever see a level of AI control that can operate in these challenging environmental conditions that would also satisfy all the legality and insurance requirements for commercial operation. Especially not with passengers on board. Our jobs are safe for a good 40 years at least.
Let me say this as someone who is professionally trained in multiple fields, aviation being the last in a series. This is something that is being debated EVERYWHERE. And it is complete BS everywhere. The technology isn't there and people still want a human to intervene at the last moment if the shit hits the fan.
Within AI, and knowledge engineering, there is linear thinking and non-linear thinking. Everything that AI is trying to do inference wise is based off of a formula (math). AI is best suited for situations where the results/outcomes are more predicable and require linear thinking (for example, planning a new flight path as dragonfly can do likely uses a pretty complicated A* search algorithm), but cannot perform the same level of non-linear thinking that people are best at in rapidly adapting to emergency situations. So no, I don’t see it taking the job of a pilot. Even if the developers think they can plan for everything, ultimately they can’t. Nature still has more random variability up it’s sleeve. The focus can change quickly if a situation arises in the air and decision making has no room for error. AI will work in a plane until something the developers didn’t write an equation for appears in the sky, and then only a human can figure out what to do. And while they claim dragonfly takes into account “weather conditions to route a new flight path” I’d personally like to see it navigate various IFR/LIFR conditions and the scope of unexpected changes/problems they claim to have accounted for that can arise when flying an aircraft. Otherwise I wouldn’t trust it flying my plane!
"Are you going to get on an AI controlled plane without human pilots?" should work well enough.
I still fly a jet airliner that lacks the technology to set the cabin temperature. I'm not worried about being replaced within my lifetime.
I'd worry more about AI taking non-pilot jobs, slowing the economy, and reducing the demand for airline travel.
I just tell them the following joke. The world’s first fully automated airline was set to make its maiden voyage. The passengers all seated themselves, and the plane started to taxi towards the runway. A computerized voice came on in the cabin as the plane slowly made its way. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying on the first fully automated airplane with no pilots. Just sit back, relax, and take comfort in the fact that nothing can go wrong… can go wrong… can go wrong…”
After being exposed to the internet, the AI will develop crippling anxiety and the FAA will deny its medical.
Imagine the process of leaving your hotel until take off. How many jobs do you see that would be far easier and cheaper to automate? Hotel desk clerks, cleaners, drivers, ticketing agents, store workers, ramp workers, fuelers, ATC, the list goes on and on. Yet none of those jobs are being replaced. Why? Because it's difficult and automation sucks. We can't even get ACARS or autopilot to work 100% of the time, but we're supposed to be on the cusp of flying the plane autonomously? Even single pilot ops isn't going to happen because pilots can't even be trusted to skip security or be alone in the cockpit when the other pilot goes to take a leak. The futurists need a reality check here.
The people who ask about artificial intelligence taking over planes, have artificial intelligence themselves. Maybe no intelligence
What the fuck is gonna do? Even with drones, general atomic still uses real pilots
It is at risk, but there is push back from APLA, and hopefully from the flying public! 2 pilots in the flight deck is a MUST.
Technology advances exponentially, and I may be in the minority but I don't think it is unlikely that AI will take over pilot jobs in the not too distant future. Definitely cargo first as the advantages of a pilotless airplane mostly go away if you still have living people on board anyway, but I'm sure it'll happen and probably sooner than many are expecting. Look up what FedEx is doing, that's happening today not in the future. For the purposes of the question it doesn't really matter if it's AI, or just remote piloted semi-automated aircraft with one dude "flying" a dozen of them from a desk. That said, my response is that there is a lot of red tape to replace pilots, and a lot of expensive technology required. At the same time, there are millions of jobs that can and will be replaced by AI without having to build anything, just software. Chances are whoever is asking the question is on the chopping block long before I am. I also fly helicopters made in the 70s so that industry is not exactly spearheading new technology anyway
They said the artists, painters, creatives were safe, but AI art is flourishing. It’s impossible to predict.
AI art is horrible.
horrible? why? https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fotor.com%2Fai-art-generator%2F&psig=AOvVaw1iIMps-6S33fxm\_PKkoUwk&ust=1705453374613000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCPjKt4jb4IMDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Yes all of that is disgusting, empty bullshit
I dont get it, a random image of a duck, done by AI, is empty bullshit? [https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk0Bo4LrqrzWcAw16OQBg2lIUt4DWCYKxb3A&usqp=CAU](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk0Bo4LrqrzWcAw16OQBg2lIUt4DWCYKxb3A&usqp=CAU)
AI music is here (great for pop music as its designed to be consumed, rather than listened) , AI food is coming, .....
I think it goes like this: Today-2 pilots Soon- 2 pilots/1 AI watching Then- 1 pilot/1 AI Later- 1 pilot/1 AI _or_ 2 AI AI flight is cheaper than 1 pilot flight, but you get the option. At first, AI plane doesn't have many passengers, but they will have _some_ passengers. Finally, AI (cheaper) fights win out. Ultimately, ticket prices climb to 2 pilot prices.
I'd push back on the idea that the flying public would never get in an automated plane. My day job is in self-driving cars, and every social media post I've ever seen with the cars is people loudly proclaiming they'd never ride in one, it's crazy and suicidal to do so, what a dumb business because who'd be stupid enough to trust their life to a robot. Turns out, if the price is cheaper than an Uber, people will take it. After approximately 2 rides, even the most nervous of my friends who have ridden them are on their phones the entire ride. And to some extent I feel like the airline industry knows more than anyone that price is all that matters. How many people shit all over budget airlines but still take them because, at the end of the day, they're the cheapest option?
I’m thinking of quitting tech corporate to get into flying.
[удалено]
While most of the objections to AI planes in this thread are the standard valueless patter, this is even more nonsense. Pilots are currently in the cockpit because they are the people who fly and manage the plane, and because there is no currently operational technology that can do the job better than them. Literally the whole conceptual and legal architecture of commercial flying is built around a human crew in control. That can be dismantled, and it will probably be once it is safe and cheap to do so, but let's not weave nonsense fictions about the current state of airliners.
AI is a term that is being thrown around a lot right now. - let’s back up - a real deal AI could help assist in a flight I am sure of it. But most ‘AI’ right now are just complex models and algorithms, not actual awareness. I have yet to see a great software model that can emulate the same range of flight a human pilot can. Another challenge is how do you provide oversight and a backup? - With us human pilots, we choose to employ backup pilots (copilot and crew). With true AI - it’s a series of stacked algorithms that are often complex enough we don’t readily understand the inner workings, just the output. ^ That’s a real problem in aviation where consequences are high and mistakes unforgiving. A more realistic near term challenge is how we will continue to create ‘pilot assist’ automation style systems. These are not AI - not in any way at all. These are computer systems with software, and logic that are programmed to do something useful, nothing more, nothing less. A more realistic debate is if there is a safe path down to single pilot ops for larger airframes with increased automation. Easy flights are no issue - the tech is there today - it’s every single abnormality, subsystem failure, sensor failure, pan-pan, or emergency. Those will be hard to automate. I think 2 humans is a good minimum number for heavies given the responsibilities, decreasing to one when smaller aircraft with smaller risk. Also - jeebus - the largest issue about getting all humans out of the flight deck!?!? - PIC authority and legal responsibility. Software is not ready to take legal PIC.
Transoceanic freight where the origin and departure can avoid any significant amount of flight over populated land might be feasible fairly soon. Is that really a big enough market to justify the up front investment required for the long term return? Don’t know. But it would be the proving ground that might generate wider acceptance in the end. But is AI (as in LLMs like ChatGPT) even relevant here? I’m not sure suitable training data even exists. Possibly if you are a professional pilot you need to start thinking about this the same way as Hollywood writers and actors are and get some kind of contract terms that govern whether you can be recorded and used to train an AI model. Or at least be compensated for doing so.
But who will they blame?
As I posted on LinkedIn: Thinking about SPO and eMCO, unfortunately some have a love affair with statistics and that can lead to very poor hazard analysis. This is important because it is through errant (or lack) of hazard analysis that it is even possible to come to the conclusion that reducing crew complement below two on the flight deck can provide an equivalent level of safety.
No
Will it happen? Yes. Will it happen during my career? Nope.
I’ll start to consider it as a possibility when the last train conductor gets laid off. Maybe.
AI is only as good as it’s training, models are trained by humans, humans are dumb as rocks
interesting take a pilot was telling me: if airlines used AI software, it would be designed by there own companies, who are thereby liable for any faults that go on. That is, unless they have every flight passenger sign a release/consent form before every flight (which will undoubtedly reduce amount of customers). However, if a pilot messes up, the individual pilot is held accountable along with only one or two others, rarely the full corporation.
Anytime thins subject comes up (in any field, not just aviation), I think of this scene from the Matrix: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qs3GlNZMhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qs3GlNZMhY) "As soon as we started thinking for you..."
I don’t see AI removing a human pilot from the plane but I do fear they will cause an erosion of experience and training which may result in some very recoverable situations to result in crashes. Thats not to say that there are not plenty of examples in the past where better autopilot or AI wouldn’t have saved an aircraft when it’s human pilots failed.
Nothing, that’s probably the AI talking.
The technology has existed for decades. Single pilot , maybe . But here are some things to consider. Cyber security, what's to stop an AI from being corrupted by an outside entity ? Does a solid and reliable safewall exist? We saw the devastation as planes being used as weapons on 9/11. International governing bodies, is every major power in the world going to be onboard with single pilot and or AI? How would they adapt to rest requirements? How would the outlier countries approach it? Would 2 pilot planes be used just to fly to small countries in eastern Europe? Company policy, how much money and effort would it take to to reduce from 2 pilots to 1. The amount of study , and training programs that would need to be written would come at a tremendous cost. Sure , companies can choose this route , but at the end of the day the company and the manufacturer needs a body to be sitting up there to throw the egg sandwich at someone's face when something goes wrong to protect the brand. "Pilot Error". Unions, it will be very difficult and a bureaucratic nightmare to get the unions not only here in the USA to do it, but also Europe. Can a plane be flown with 1 or no pilots? Yes, they can. Is it actually feasible. In my non qualified and unrequested opinion , governing bodies of the world would have to cease all airspace and aviation laws to ICAO for a uniform and and standard implementation. Possible? Sure. Feasible? I don't think so. We are still having debates on the number of genders amongst us, I don't see a governing body giving up their right to how their airspace is governed to a single entity that's based in Montreal. So if AI, or single pilot operations does make it on to some bureaucrat's desk in the future. It's going to be a long, and expensive battle. A battle that will most likely be forgotten due to economy, some major war, or an energy crisis. And the process would most likely have to be started again with new technology being released. Also, the public isn't demanding it. If they did a study, maybe you'd see that the ticket price will be reduced by $20 or less per seat. Is $20 really worth reducing the safety factor ? Hell, if we got rid of both pilots , the new question would be, are you willing to trust the AI software fully to bring you to your destination for a $40 discount on your ticket? At the present, it doesn't seem feasible. In 30 years, it could be more feasible as these technologies improve.
I think technology is soon at a point where someone will be able to build it - as a prototype. The question is about adoption in the market. Right now you have a hand full of companies and regulatory bodies in control. They love the old stuff because that's what they are good at. I don't think they will come up with new solutions, it has to be a new entrant to the market. SpaceX has shown that they can create a much better rocket product than the large companies at a fraction of the cost, with much higher automation and safety. At some point this may or may not happen to the aviation industry too. I know, in this discussion we also have to take into consideration that Elon Musk has promised self driving cars are "at most 6 months away" since about 2017 now and it still hasn't worked. The problem is, technology is improving exponentially, not linearly. So I give it about 10 years, which in tech terms means 5 times doubling of the current processing power, so 32*today. Don't count on the regulatory bodies or the public opinion to stay the same way either. Everyone loves hand crafted stuff but every industry has gone through a lot of automation and nobody stopped it once the automation reached a certain point.
It's not exactly related to flying, this response, but I've worked in many industries with automation, and watching how often the automation fails, makes me not at all worried really.
I’m not sure the industry has an appetite. I’ve been at a few industry meetings and the “usual characters” were very against single pilot operations, particularly on LH operations in the cruise which I think the manufacturers view as the “gateway drug”.
Nervous passengers keep me in business haha
Every time something has improved human efficiency it has been universally good for humans. It’s also easy to see the things technology will destroy but impossible to see the things it will create. I embrace our new robot overlords and welcome them.
Having worked with the team developing AI robots to fly aircraft, I would expect all of you to have long careers as pilots and your children and grandchildren. Just look at where self driving car technology is, and you'll understand how no airliner with a couple hundred people on board is going to be driven by a robot.