Originally Posted by
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I think you may be conflating issues. So my concern is not AI flown airplanes that think for themselves. It's automating the aircraft so much that we don't need pilots up front operating them. In addition, automating them so much it will devalue the actual skill set.
They've already automated out some things....
1. Systems Management. Good rid of FE's.
2. Reduced mental gymnastics in IFR navigation. This didn't eliminate the need for pilots but expanded the pool of potential talent, lowering labor cost.
3. Hand flying. Didn't eliminate pilots, but rather made things safer by allowing pilots to focus their mental energy on problem solving vice BAI.
But what they can't automate is judgement and flexibility without a non-deterministic generalized AI. That's problematic because they have no idea how to build one, less idea how to certify it, and there are a host of ethical issues up to and including an existential threat to humanity (low probability I know, but the potential consequences are so severe that it must be considered deadly seriously).