This probably explains why I saw the Ghost from Pacman trying to eat my plane when I was making that ILS approach for runway 32 Right.
US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
71–80 of 172 posts
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#72Idiotic headline. This is a trainee pipeline. The headline is meant to mislead you into thinking they hired some people based on video games and they are now air traffic controllers.
I blame the readers. It shouldn’t be that hard to think about it for two seconds and conclude they’re probably not just plopping gamers in front of a radar screen. But apparently that’s too much to ask.
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#73No mention of what games they're playing? Also no mention of when the NYC ones were told to move to Pennsylvania or be fired? Interestingly also cbs's article https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-philadelphia-a...
> No mention of what games they're playing? According to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, people typically play video games about controlling traffic in the air? Or the quote was just completely butchered to be something completely else than what was said: > "A lot of what they do playing games ... is what they do ... controlling traffic in the air," Duffy told CBS News
Presumably they meant staring at a screen for hours on end while talking through a headset.
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#74No mention of what games they're playing? Also no mention of when the NYC ones were told to move to Pennsylvania or be fired? Interestingly also cbs's article https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-philadelphia-a...
GTA 5 online, probably.
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#75I had a coworker from the democratic republic of Congo who insisted that if he was back home he would do ok fighting because he played lots of first-person shooters. I mean he was 100% serious about this. We argued about it. He got a commitment from our employer to pay his undergrad tuition. But he disappeared one day, probably went home to fight and die. I search for him every now and then but I think he's gone. I t…
The types of skills from FPS games and real fighting are much further apart than gaming and ATC. A closer analogy would be a coworker who knows Judo is needed for Greco-Roman wrestling. Very different sports with different rules, but the skills in building and navigating a mental map of the environment carry over.
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#76I had a coworker from the democratic republic of Congo who insisted that if he was back home he would do ok fighting because he played lots of first-person shooters. I mean he was 100% serious about this. We argued about it. He got a commitment from our employer to pay his undergrad tuition. But he disappeared one day, probably went home to fight and die. I search for him every now and then but I think he's gone. I t…
I think in both cases that while it's far from an equivalent experience, there are some attributes or skills that can transfer across. Not sure why anyone would be particularly keen to bet their life on just that, though.
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Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weather conditions, ground/runway conditions, obstructions, mechanical issues. There are tons of edge cases with huge consequences for error. Same reason self driving is not a solved problem, but with dramatically less tolerance for error.
But it feels like planes have a huge advantage in that they all have trackers constantly broadcasting their location to one another. Almost like they are working as a team compared to FSD systems which are limited to a small range of self collected info from vision/lidar. Not that it can ever be fully automated but it seems like much easier problem to solve.
Doesn’t meaningfully change the answer. There are still tons of edge cases with catastrophic failure modes. The transponder won’t tell you about the alligator on the runway, a vehicle where it shouldn’t be, unexpected braking action, a mechanical problem, or a plane not doing what it was cleared to do. Tracking the planes is the easy part.
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#78There is a ATC game from Japan: BOKUKAN (I am an Air Traffic Controller):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Traffic_Controller_(series...
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#79ATCs are chronically understaffed in a way that endangers all of us, and the FAA has been under scrutiny for their hiring practices for over a decade https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39184451 It's equally plausible to me that this is an example of "we need to try something and this is something" or just deflection from the prior criticism.
As trying things go, it doesn’t seem that crazy of an idea. I imagine air traffic control would even make for a pretty fun video game.
When I was working on my PPL, I used VATSIM which is a worldwide network where volunteer hobbyists actually act as virtual air traffic controllers, so you can practice traffic patterns, instructions, and just get more comfortable when you are operating real-life radio comms.
Re: US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers
#80I don't know why hiring gamers for ATC would be any different than hiring anyone else to do it. There's extensive training required, and I don't think it's something you can get a college degree for anyway. Maybe there's some advantage for gamers, but I don't see where it would be all that important.
From the article:
> Duffy added that many current trainees started out as gamers. Only about 25% of controllers hold a traditional college degree, while former controllers note that gaming requires many of the same skills that air traffic controllers use on the job, such as thinking quickly, staying focused and managing multiple sources of information as they guide more than 80,000 flights to their destinations daily.
There is also a rigorous application process to get into the training program that only 10% of applicants pass:
> Among the criteria to become a controller are to hold U.S. citizenship, be under the age of 31 and pass the FAA air traffic pre-employment tests.
> Aspiring controllers must also pass an exam that the FAA says predicts candidates' "aptitude to be an air traffic controller." Within a week, they are notified if they have passed.
> Historically, fewer than 10% of applicants met the FAA's requirements to work as an air traffic controller and gain admission to the agency's training program.
So if gamers on average tend to be younger, and do better on the aptitude test than the general population, I think it makes sense to target them with recruitment campaigns to attempt to increase the number of qualified applicants coming into the funnel. Presumably non-gamers are also still welcome to apply.
And if it doesn’t work out and gamers don’t end up getting accepted at a higher rate than anyone else, then it’s no great loss, either.