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Can Claude Fly a Plane?

so.long.thanks.fish

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Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#91

Post by teeray »

“Automation can lower the workload in some cases. But in other situations, using automation when it is not appropriate can increase one’s workload. A pilot has to know how to use a level of automation that is appropriate... Whether you’re flying by hand or using technology to help, you’re ultimately flying the airplane with your mind by developing and maintaining an accurate real-time mental model of your reality—the airplane, the environment, and the situation. The question is: How many different levels of technology do you want to place between your brain and the control surfaces?“[0]

—Sully Sullenberger

[0] Sully: My Search for What Really Matters. p. 188

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#93

Post by penguin_booze »

teeray wrote: post #91

“Automation can lower the workload in some cases. But in other situations, using automation when it is not appropriate can increase one’s workload. A pilot has to know how to use a level of automation that is appropriate... Whether you’re flying by hand or using technology to help, you’re ultimately flying the airplane with your mind by developing and maintaining an accurate real-time mental model of your reality—the…

I hope vibe coding enthsiasts are listening.

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#94

Post by gcatellani2k »

penguin_booze wrote: post #93
teeray wrote: post #91

“Automation can lower the workload in some cases. But in other situations, using automation when it is not appropriate can increase one’s workload. A pilot has to know how to use a level of automation that is appropriate... Whether you’re flying by hand or using technology to help, you’re ultimately flying the airplane with your mind by developing and maintaining an accurate real-time mental model of your reality—the…

I hope vibe coding enthsiasts are listening.

I‘d say the same holds true for other use cases and should not only target vibe coders. Eg self driving cars. Level 2 is fine and level 5 is good, it‘s in between these two where I‘m afraid of as people are distracted enough and not able enough to gather what‘s happening around them to react in every situation.

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#95

Post by Mawr »

ekianjo wrote: post #35
operatingthetan wrote: post #18

We already have advanced autopilots that can fly commercial airliners. We just don't trust them enough to not have human pilots. I would trust the autopilot more than freaking Claude. We already do, every day.

> We just don't trust them enough to not have human pilots never mind that most crashes are caused by humans, very rarely by technical issues going amok

That's so incredibly reductive, that I'd go ahead and call it plain wrong.

"Caused by a human" is the lowest tier, first base human instinct analysis of any accident, and as such, unless proven otherwise, can be discarded out of hand.

It comes down to: if a human mistake is capable of causing an accident, your system is badly designed because it assumes a part of the system known to be unreliable (a human) is always reliable.

The whole trick is designing systems that are safe despite humans being in the loop. Then you get to benefit from the advantages humans bring over machines without suffering the downsides.

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#96

Post by Mawr »

amelius wrote: post #52
stnikolauswagne wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it is more interesting to have 99% of flying done with automated systems but have an LLM focus on recognizing unanticipated situations and recovering or mitigating them. Seeing how Claude (or any current LLM) perform in even the most low-stake coding scenario I dont think I would ever set foot on a plane where the 1% of most risky scenarios are decided by one.

Using an LLM doesn't mean it has to take the final decision. You can also use it as a warning system.

False negatives are a huge issue when designing safety systems. It is not the case that "more warnings = more better".

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#97

Post by cucumber3732842 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #43
boring-human wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just don't trust them enough to not have human pilots. Much of the value of a human crew is as an implicit dogfooding warranty for the passengers. If it wasn't safe to fly, the pilots wouldn't risk it day after day. To think of it, it'd be nice if they posted anonymized third-party psych evaluations of the cockpit crew on the wall by the restrooms. The cabin crew would probably appreciate that too.

There are soooo many pilot decisions that AI is nowhere near making. Managing a flight is more than flying. It is about making safety decisions during crisis, from deciding when to abort an approach to deciding when to eject a passenger. Sure, someone on the ground could make many of those decisions, but i prefer such things be decided by someone with literal skin in the game, not a beancounter or lawyer in an office

> It is about making safety decisions during crisis, from deciding when to abort an approach to deciding when to eject a passenger.

Everyone likes to hand wring about this sort of stuff but I think it's the exception. Nailing the "macro level" decisions like "we'll go around this storm but we'll go over that one" or "we must divert to A or B and we will chose B because it's better for our passengers/company/crew even if it's 10min more flying to get there" are what keep the industry humming along mostly in the black rather than in the red. And it's these sorts of things that AI just tends to yolo and get mostly right when they're obvious but also get immensely wrong when any sort of gotcha materializes.

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#98

Post by amelius »

Mawr wrote: post #96
amelius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an LLM doesn't mean it has to take the final decision. You can also use it as a warning system.

False negatives are a huge issue when designing safety systems. It is not the case that "more warnings = more better".

Of course, but an LLM can potentially help with that.

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#99

Post by bustah »

aetherspawn wrote: post #5
travisgriggs wrote: post #3

The bit in the middle where it decides to make its control loop be pure P(roportional), presumably dropping the I and D parts, is interesting to me. Seems like a poor choice. I try to fly about once a week, I’ve never really tried to self analyze what my inputs are for what I do. My hunch is that there’s quite a bit of I(ntegral) damping I do to avoid over correcting, but also quite a bit of D(erivative) adjustments…

Dumping the I part instead of just tuning it properly is kind of an insane thing to do … speaking as an actual controls engineer

[flagged]

Re: Can Claude Fly a Plane?

#100

Post by SR2Z »

operatingthetan wrote: post #18

We already have advanced autopilots that can fly commercial airliners. We just don't trust them enough to not have human pilots. I would trust the autopilot more than freaking Claude. We already do, every day.

Yeah, I think it's been technically possible to automate jetliners for a while now, but when a metal tube with hundreds of people in it develops a technical fault while moving 500+ mph there's no substitute for a pilot.
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