It likely because the ones that create that technology make mega $$$ off of it.

The tech people in California don't care if they replace someone at a McDonalds job, or a train engineer, or name any other job you could maybe automate. They are making $200k+ a year, and work at trendy campuses with ping pong tables and treadmill desks. They are farrrrr removed from those they hope to replace with their tech.

This is a great post. I’ll never get on any aircraft without a pilot or two and strongly suspect that when push comes to shove none of you will either. In any case it’s not going to happen in any of our lifetimes so who cares? Mark Twain was our greatest writer.

No one ever would have predicted the extent to which a hand held device we still refer to as a “phone” would have taken over our daily attention either.

As an aside, none of the experts who predict AI will take over everything actually work with AI. People who do will tell you it’s still in the parlor trick stage

I actually just posted this link on another article thread in the career builders section. A little long winded but I think it highlights some of the challenges that would have to be overcome by designers.

No one knows the future, but we do know there are some "significant" hurdles to allowing automation to the level many in the media so confidently throw around.

Many of the strongest proponents, simply don't understand the nature of the profession or underestimate the demands put on existing pilots. I also question how much they understand about the capabilities of AI in reference to those demands.

This misperception may be a by-product of how we talk about the profession. Most pilots avoid going into the harsher realities of flying with the flying public as a professional courtesy but are we actually doing a disservice by causing others to underestimate the very real and present threats associated with flight and allowing those who overestimate the capabilities of AI to oversell its ability?

When pilot error is the cause of an accident, it is quickly measured and broadcast to a large audience. Is there a similar public tracking of automation/system/human factors/wx/sensor/etc errors that are corrected by pilot action, threat mitigation or in-flight management? Without that level of information, it's tough to know how to measure an AI's capability in comparison to pilots.

I worry the industry's temptation to reduce costs (avoiding training and wages to develop trained and skilled pilots) by considering higher levels of automated flight may be a risk to implementing technology that has not been fully tested or vetted. Investing in people/pilots and their unique capabilities has almost always resulted in better results than a "go it alone" approach to automation.

It also signals a much better future to the many thousands of aspiring aviators who are considering such a large investment....

Great article, thanks for sharing.

Very interesting! Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E193EkN0mcY

The Japanese Shinkansen is the most technologically advanced and automated high-speed rail systems in the world. It represents the cutting edge and absolute peak of rail systems development.

It also has the most well-trained and highest-paid drivers in the Japanese rail system. Those drivers are called to the "Chief Pilot's" office is they are 15 SECONDS late to a station.

If Japan hasn't done away with train drivers, then pilots have nothing to worry about.

The maglev replacement to it is supposed to be autonomous, however one must keep in mind that it is a much simpler system where both its own components as well as its interaction with the environment is very constrained.

Exactly. The technology is there and the factors that determine when we have one-pilot then pilotless planes are driven by 1) economics and 2) social acceptance including regulation/legislation/etc.

Elevators used to have operators, and so did those intra-airport shuttles that are now autonomous (except in KIAD).