Yes, it can do that.

My original "let's suppose" statement was not as clear as it should have been. Sorry, I failed to realize how literal some folks are.

Yes, it can be done. The Buran, the Soviet equivalent to the US space shuttle, had only one flight, and it was fully controlled by self automation and ground control.

One at bat, and they batted 1.000. Well done!

But what I was trying to point out was the failure rate of autonomous aircraft is too high for the public to accept.

I submit that crash rates back in 1919 may have been acceptable, or at least tolerable, those same crash rates in 2019 would have put an end to then industry.

We live in a society that is 100% knee jerk. A produce farm that has operated safely for 40 or 50 years lets out a batch of e.coli tainted lettuce which makes a dozen folks sick and kills one 110 year old immediately starts a call for new regulations.

So, yes, AI can fly a Caravan. And if this were 1919, a crash or three would be considered growing pains. But in 2019, two crashes would be the end of the industry.

 

Also, as the automated car industry will learn soon enough, while juries will have a degree of tolerance for humans being humans, I believe they will have zero tolerance for AI killing people... especially since the only person to sue is the big corporation who recklessly sent under-developed, untested, and unsafe AI out into society with no regard for who it kills.

This stuff will be ambulance chasers wet dream, and mark my words the automation industry will end up asking congress for liability waiver laws.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident

I posted this same example in a similar thread a while back regarding AI and aircraft- public acceptance is the biggest hurdle to overcome, and if this can happen to advanced defense contractor technology, then...

 

Hi there,


A quick thread-jacking from me here



Are US fighters and heavies insured ? Maybe only when flying at home ?

 

Are fighter aircraft insured?

Yes. By taxpayers.

 

Military equipment is not insurable on the commercial market. People will actually be trying to destroy it, and it would be very hard to asses and quantify their odds of success.

Also operational procedures can be adjusted to allow for more risk as needed.

Airline pilot tired? Flight cancelled, pilot goes to hotel.

Combat pilot tired? Here, have another amphetamine...

 

There are many things that technology cannot solve in 121 Flying. Everything from the managerial decisions that a captain makes to get a flight out on time to manually lowering the landing gear to smelling fumes before the gauges give you the bad news to the walk around to see if ice is on top of the wings etc. Some of these issues aren’t technological and can’t be solved with technology. This won’t happen anytime soon.

But to take a different tack...remember that technology and its exponential growth will affect everyone, not just a specific job. Doctors, accountants, pharmacists, even models and actors I’ve read. I’ve read stuff saying coding will eventually fall to AI. Each revolution takes shorter and shorter. Right now we spend most of our time at a ‘job’ to pay for the necessities in life. This is a relatively recent phenomena. How we occupy our time and pay for things will probably change in the future, if we don’t annhilate ourselves first.

 

They will be able to justify lower pilot standards after a few accident free years. Then we will be back to 90 day wonders making 17k.

 

Here's how I see it going, at least initially. A hybrid system that keeps a human on board for flexibility to react to the unexpected and the robot will make sure the human doesn't do any of the typical boneheaded moves that are usually associated with mishaps. This will cut the number of pilot's by half and allow maturation of the technology. We only have to worry if the robot asks the human, "Just what do you think you are doing Dave?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om18cOWFL3Q Or even worse when the robots start posting on APC about how incompetent the humans are they are having to fly with

 

"AI controlled aircraft will NEVER happen because I don't want it to."


There, I've summarized the opposing conversation.



I'm amazed at the number of software and neural net experts that reside on this forum