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Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

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Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#111
post #97
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to pull another quote from that section that I think also supports the idea. There are specific cases cited in the book… I just don’t think copying an entire section of a book will be as helpful at getting the ideas out here: > “Dr. Wiener[0] worried, and I agree, that the paradox of automation is that it often lowers a pilot’s workload when that load is already low. And it sometimes increases the workload…

In general, I don't understand the push of humans to want to replace everything we do with machines. What's the point? What's the end goal? We just sit in a vat of embalming fluid consuming media with a feeding tube while machines whir about? Why can't enough ever be enough for humanity?

Automation doesn't need to have The Matrix as the end result; it could be a Star Trek utopia.

If automation was truly in the spirit of freeing people from having to struggle to survive, imagine a system build around an automated future where because everything is so efficient and there's no need for menial labor, you can just kind of do whatever you want; art, research, gardening, you name it. Freeloaders in the system sum up to a rounding error for the resources needed to support them because the system is efficient. Enough people like the system that they willingly work to maintain it and improve it (it's even exciting for them to study and build new and better ways of providing the resources than the existing way), but ultimately you just have time to do the things you tell yourself right now you can't do because you need to take meetings/clean up the house/work 8+ hours a day to sustain a basic living, etc.

It's likely going to be a tough transition as long as we still think in terms of "I as a person must maximize my gains and protect them from everyone else", but automation could easily provide such a life for everyone if it advances enough. That transition is gonna be a hard one though as the habit of personal gain is a tough one to break after living in it for so long.

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#112
post #95

I'm kind of surprised that no one has mentioned the possibility of pilots having malicious intent.

Exactly, there's a reason the "Two-man rule" exists for when a single person should not be trusted with the outcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-man_rule

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#113
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I don't understand the push of humans to want to replace everything we do with machines. What's the point? What's the end goal? We just sit in a vat of embalming fluid consuming media with a feeding tube while machines whir about? Why can't enough ever be enough for humanity?

Becase if we didn't, there'd be 95% of us still producing food manually and the other 5% would be blacksmiths and other supporting roles for food production. Now, only a tiny percentage of people produce food, and the rest can be community managers on twitter.

> and the rest can be community managers on twitter.

I now understand just how much progress we've made as a civilization

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#114
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the MCAS disaster. The only override that wasn't under its control required someone present in the cockpit to basically physically lift the plane using a normally automated control. This illustrates two things: First the design of the software used in commercial airplanes is bat shit insane and second, the fallbacks require that a trained person is physically present on the plane. > We have been using re…

I know a bit about the MCAS disaster. Very few people know that there were *three* incidences of MCAS runaway trim. What happened with the third one (which was actually the first incident)? It didn't crash. The pilot just turned off the stab trim system. The override was there, it was always there. The thumb switches on the control column overrode it. Turning it off with the STAB TRIM CUTOFF switch turned it off. Thi…

Huh, if only there could have been some kind of training that would be required to use this new system, but that would require recertification!

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#115

All you gotta do is watch a few episodes of "Aviation Disasters" to conclude that the pilot needs a backup - the copilot. After all, when the pilot goes to the potty, who is flying the airplane? The computer? LOL. When something unanticipated goes wrong, the computers are COMPLETELY USELESS because it wasn't programmed to deal with unanticipated problems. Me, I'll pay a bit extra for my flight to have 2 pilots. Pilot…

But would that pilot have to be in the plane to fly it? We have been using remote controlled killer drones for years now.

If the pilot goes all Germanwings and decides to fly the plane into a mountain, what is the pilot on the ground going to do about it?

If your answer is “the pilot on the ground takes control”, what happens when that system gets hacked?

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#116
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I don't understand the push of humans to want to replace everything we do with machines. What's the point? What's the end goal? We just sit in a vat of embalming fluid consuming media with a feeding tube while machines whir about? Why can't enough ever be enough for humanity?

About 1/3rd of the cost of an airline ticket is labor. Many people in the travel industry would rather be at home with their families, traveling themselves, pursuing other hobbies instead of working

> Many people in the travel industry would rather be at home with their families, traveling themselves, pursuing other hobbies instead of working

But they’re not because they need the paycheck.

You’re fooling yourself to think the fruits of automated labor will not end up simply laying them off with basically no other benefits than the general population: slightly cheaper air travel (if nobody else gobbles up the differential).

In the end excessive automation it’s a bad proposition for labor in general.

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But would that pilot have to be in the plane to fly it? We have been using remote controlled killer drones for years now.

I am not a pilot. But given my experience driving cars in video games, and driving them in 3D land, there's no comparison. A remote operator cannot pick up a fire extinguisher, go into the cabin and look out the window, smell the smoke, feel the weird vibration, relieve the pilot who is pulling on the controls with all his might, fend off intruders with the fire axe, etc. Remote control is always going to have a lag…

Now imagine what happens if the connection gets hacked

Re: Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

#119
post #111
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I don't understand the push of humans to want to replace everything we do with machines. What's the point? What's the end goal? We just sit in a vat of embalming fluid consuming media with a feeding tube while machines whir about? Why can't enough ever be enough for humanity?

Automation doesn't need to have The Matrix as the end result; it could be a Star Trek utopia. If automation was truly in the spirit of freeing people from having to struggle to survive, imagine a system build around an automated future where because everything is so efficient and there's no need for menial labor, you can just kind of do whatever you want; art, research, gardening, you name it. Freeloaders in the syst…

> Automation doesn't need to have The Matrix as the end result; it could be a Star Trek utopia.

In some alternate world, perhaps.

In the real world, developing AI is costing capitalists a lot of capital, and they fully expect to capitalize on this technology, at the expense of all the rest of us.

> That transition is gonna be a hard one though as the habit of personal gain is a tough one to break after living in it for so long.

This is ridiculous. 99% of us simply have no choice. We keep working, not because of "personal gain" but so we can continue to eat food and have shelter over our heads. Our relationship to "personal gain" is simply irrelevant in this equation because we have no power.

Only a tiny number of people who are already incredibly rich because of obsessive attention to personal gain will have any say, and of course, they will decide in favor of MORE personal gain.

Blaming the rest of us for this is simply victim-blaming.

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