By 2030, commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotlessplanes.

"beavis" wrote in message
...
[...]
Had that been a "pilotless airliner," you *couldn't* shut off all
electric power, and the wire would have continued to burn. I doubt it
would have been as uneventful as it turned out with humans at the
controls.

I don't dispute that one can imagine scenarios where only a human would
help. I don't even dispute that a fully-automated cockpit (no pilot at all)
could still fail (and of course, would fail in ways in which a human never
would).

Your example is meaningless, as would any single example of some event. The
question is who would cause accidents more often: human beings, or
computers. Only a complete statistical study can answer that question;
individual experiences are irrelevant.

That said, the event you describe was most dangerous because of the smoke in
the cabin. A computer wouldn't care about smoke. Yes, the short would
likely cause some failure to other components, but I would expect any
computer-piloted aircraft to include various redundancies and
system-isolation features.

No computer would eat the fish for lunch, either.

To think that a computer couldn't have safely handled the event you describe
is to have a complete lack of imagination for what is possible.

Pete

In article , Peter Duniho
wrote:

To think that a computer couldn't have safely handled the event you describe
is to have a complete lack of imagination for what is possible.

I'm having trouble imagining how that computer could have run without
electric power. Backup battery? What if the computer was where the
fire was?

Had the short circuit continued, the cabin would have continued to fill
with smoke, and my passengers would have been dead. (Airline oxygen
masks are not sealed systems -- they mix with ambient air, and smoke.)

Computers have a LONG way to go before they'll be completely foolproof,
and intelligent enough to adapt to scenarios. I'm not saying it can't
happen, but I'm willing to bet it's going to take a lot longer than 25
more years.

The human analog of your question is a pilot becoming unconsicous
during flight. Yes, we have a backup pilot, but there is no reason why
we can't put MANY backup computers and backup power sources.

Computers will never be fool proof, but they can be more reliable than
humans, especially in repetitive tasks. Like it or not, flying is a
repetitive task.

Andrew Sarangan wrote:
The human analog of your question is a pilot becoming unconsicous
during flight. Yes, we have a backup pilot, but there is no reason why
we can't put MANY backup computers and backup power sources.

Computers will never be fool proof, but they can be more reliable than
humans, especially in repetitive tasks. Like it or not, flying is a
repetitive task.

Have you ever flown one of the new state of the art aircraft?

7 times out of 10 when you start up the aircraft you get some kind of
nuisance message or glitch, and like any computer you just go with the
old Control Alt Delete routine.
There are still too many computer glitches to even think to have
aircrafts without pilots.

"beavis" wrote in message
...
I'm having trouble imagining how that computer could have run without
electric power. Backup battery? What if the computer was where the
fire was?

From my previous post (you might try reading it):

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
[...]
That said, the event you describe was most dangerous because of the smoke
in
the cabin. A computer wouldn't care about smoke. Yes, the short would
likely cause some failure to other components, but I would expect any
computer-piloted aircraft to include various redundancies and
system-isolation features.

You also write:

Computers have a LONG way to go before they'll be completely foolproof,
and intelligent enough to adapt to scenarios. I'm not saying it can't
happen, but I'm willing to bet it's going to take a lot longer than 25
more years.

We are there now. We have the engineering know-how to produce
computer-flown airplanes, including solving all of the various redundancy
and system-isolation issues to address issues such as the one you think is a
problem.

The problem is social. There's no way people will get on an airliner flown
by a computer. And you're right about that: it's going to take a LOT longer
than 25 more years for that to change. It may *never* happen.

Pete

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

We are there now. We have the engineering know-how to produce
computer-flown airplanes, including solving all of the various redundancy
and system-isolation issues to address issues such as the one you think is a
problem.

What we don't have is the ability to formally prove the correctness of software.
(which is not to say that humans always are correct).

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
What we don't have is the ability to formally prove the correctness of
software.

We DO have the ability to prove "correct enough". That is, we have
engineering strategies designed to ensure correctness to some given degree.
These are the same techniques that were used for the space shuttle computers
(though, unfortunately, not for recent unmanned space probes), and similar
techniques are used for existing automation in aviation.

It's true that we don't have mathematical proofs for correctness. Of
course, it's widely believed we may never be able to have that. But
physical engineering suffers from similar limitations, and it seems to get
by just fine. Theoretical design can always be undermined by human
implementation, but there is an idea of "good enough" in both types of
engineering. You simply design in assumptions of human failure of
implementation.

I don't see this as a fundamental barrier to pilotless airliners.

Pete

Recently, Peter Duniho posted:

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
What we don't have is the ability to formally prove the correctness
of software.

We DO have the ability to prove "correct enough". That is, we have
engineering strategies designed to ensure correctness to some given
degree. These are the same techniques that were used for the space
shuttle computers (though, unfortunately, not for recent unmanned
space probes), and similar techniques are used for existing
automation in aviation.

It's true that we don't have mathematical proofs for correctness. Of
course, it's widely believed we may never be able to have that. But
physical engineering suffers from similar limitations, and it seems
to get by just fine. Theoretical design can always be undermined by
human implementation, but there is an idea of "good enough" in both
types of engineering. You simply design in assumptions of human
failure of implementation.

I don't see this as a fundamental barrier to pilotless airliners.

In the same vein, piloted airliners are "good enough". The number of
catastrophic losses are quite small in comparison to the number of
flights. There is no evidence that aircraft piloted by computer would fare
any better, much less signficantly better.

As I see it, the question isn't whether a computer can fly an airplane
from A to B, but whether it can handle the unanticipated problem
successfully. This amounts to being able to anticipate the opportunities
to fail, and the possibilities extend well beyond the ability to predict
them (the DARPA land XC example demonstrates that this may be an issue).
While computer-piloted aircraft may eventually be able to succeed "most of
the time", human-piloted aircraft have done so for quite some time. So, I
question the benefits of such an effort.

Neil

As far as high jacking: I think that a pilotless plane would be more
secure. The designers could put in a code or something and make it
impossible for a hi-jacker to take control of the plane.

Of course he could still blow the damn thing up in mid-flight, but he
wouldn't be able to fly it into the WTC or such.

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
...
In the same vein, piloted airliners are "good enough". The number of
catastrophic losses are quite small in comparison to the number of
flights. There is no evidence that aircraft piloted by computer would fare
any better, much less signficantly better.

What would you consider "evidence"? It's not like we've got airliners
without pilots that we can use for comparison. There's no question
automation would avoid certain kinds of losses; the valid question (without
an answer for the moment) is whether human pilots balance that out with
actions that a computerized pilot could not take.

I am sure the pilots' unions will invest great resources in showing that
human pilots are better. But I'd just as soon see an independent source for
that analysis.

Saying "there is no evidence" may be true, but it doesn't answer the
question. It simply describes the current lack of information.

As far as "good enough" goes, that's a social issue. For the time being,
I'd agree things are "good enough", especially the distrust that the public
would have with an fully automated airliner. But long-term, airlines are
looking at two things, at least:

* Overall loss rate
* Cost of operations

Both of these affect their bottom line, and if they can save money by using
airliners without human pilots, they will. They will, of course, have to
take into account the effect making that change will have on ridership. But
if the airliners can convince the public that taking the human out of the
equation is safer, that won't be an issue.

Pete