Not the problem with automation.
Here's the two problems:
1-The plane is controlled via a link of some kind. The link is accidentally broken, or intentionally broken, or taken over.
2-The plane is autonomous, and the computers either quit, or they decide to "911".

I can see having one pilot and AI working together, so the human can fix a situation that isn't fixable by a computer, or the human can take over, if something goes very wrong with the AI control of the aircraft. Or, the human could operate the aircraft, assisted by the AI to prevent a stupid human trick.

 

So will I be wearing the O2 mask 95-98% of the time then?

 

Those are technical problems. The chain of trust, authentication, and even multiple party verification of commands can be maintained with cryptography. Spoofed signals (even from a suicidal pilot) can be defeated. The computer can be programmed to execute a fail-safe if it detects something fishy. The engineering is tedious yet trivial.

But we don't trust humans. We trust motives such as greed and self preservation. Taking a pilot out of the cockpit doesn't mean we're trusting a machine. It means we're trusting different motives. I'd sooner trust a machine than the motives of a man in the ground. So I say it's either 1) two pilots, 2) one pilot, one ground controller, and one non-overridable on-board autonomous computer with fail-safes for command disagreement or authentication failures, or 3) a totally autonomous on-board computer.

 

Yet, every time there is a thunderstorm, my hard drive fries.

 

Everytime?!

 

Well, twice. H/P All-in One

 

I’m guessing it’s an SSD. They don’t take kindly to power losses. They work fine in laptops because of the battery. A battery back up will save your drive.

 

Press release: “Acme Airlines deeply regrets the unforseeable electronic glitch that caused this crash. In sympathy for the victims and their families, our CEO shot three nerds.”

 

I thank you for that.

 

There are decisions I make on the line, that could never be programmed into an autonomous system. On time departure performance would basically drop to zero in a full auto aircraft. An AI can fly the plane from gate to gate, respond to any flight emergency, but it can't make management decisions that keep the airline running smoothly. So there always has to be a human upfront. Physically flying the aircraft, and most ATC functions are coming to end in the future, when that happens, depends on the government.