Save your pennies (aka what will you do after your job is automated)

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Yakob said:
Yes, we are fortunate that even if automated or single-pilot airliners become feasible, regulation will buy us some time.

There are other jobs that are at risk of being automated away sooner. In fact studies have suggested that 47% of today's jobs are at risk of disappearing in the next 25 years. If there is 47% unemployment, the economy certainly won't support many pilots, and this always seems to be ignored when we have these discussions. Air travel is a luxury and if you work for an airline your livelihood is largely dependant on most of society having enough disposable income to afford it.
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But my point is freaking out over this is like being on the Titanic and worrying about your vacation being ruined. We're not the only ones going down with the ship.
 
JordanD said:
But my point is freaking out over this is like being on the Titanic and worrying about your vacation being ruined. We're not the only ones going down with the ship.
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Oh, absolutely. My point was that pilots won't necessarily be safe just because autonomous airliners are a long ways off. But you are correct that many other people will be affected, and in some cases already have been. There are likely to be some major disruptions in society as a result of automation-induced structural unemployment.
 
Yakob said:
Oh, absolutely. My point was that pilots won't necessarily be safe just because autonomous airliners are a long ways off. But you are correct that many other people will be affected, and in some cases already have been. There are likely to be some major disruptions in society as a result of automation-induced structural unemployment.
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You mean like what happened with the industrial revolution, or maybe the last computer revolution that resulted in 4% unemployment?

Oh but wait, THIS TIME, it's different.

Our refrigerators are being hacked and turned into spam bots. A car wash was hacked and used to attack a vehicle. Until we can figure out how to secure things as simple as kitchen appliances and car washes, I'm not going to be worried about pilotless airplanes, if only because the risk of having the plane hacked and run into a building is too great.
 
jtrain609 said:
You mean like what happened with the industrial revolution, or maybe the last computer revolution that resulted in 4% unemployment?

Oh but wait, THIS TIME, it's different.

Our refrigerators are being hacked and turned into spam bots. A car wash was hacked and used to attack a vehicle. Until we can figure out how to secure things as simple as kitchen appliances and car washes, I'm not going to be worried about pilotless airplanes, if only because the risk of having the plane hacked and run into a building is too great.
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There's every reason to believe that sooner or later it will be different. Certainly as technology progresses, new industries, products and services will emerge; this is what has created the new jobs that have cancelled out the obsolete ones in the past. But in the future there will be fewer and fewer tasks that can be done more cheaply by human beings than technology. The fact that horses, oxen and other beasts of burden were once integral to agriculture but are now more or less obsolete is an example of this- eventually technology will progress enough that ordinary people will be obsolete as well.

And yes, I actually mentioned that pilotless airplanes are probably a long way off. But pilots don't exist in a vacuum. I doubt many airline tickets will be sold if there is 47% structural unemployment.
 
Just like automated cars, it’s a pipe dream. The problem is simple, a computer has to be programmed to make a decision. Humans can choose openly and outside of the box. So if two people jay walk and the exact same time, which way does the car go, computers will have that decision pre programed, maybe it’s better to do factor X that was not programmed. Flying it so fluid it will be impossible. As for the military, they accept more error. Yes, some applications will work, cargo from land to a ship okay, if it crashes it’s all good, and it’s only done in XYZ conditions. These things are all pipe dreams. I’ll just drive 78 trans am around these automated cars and watch the chaos.
 
NovemberEcho said:
If a Huey can be modified for autonomous flight, a Boeing or Airbus can.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/autonomous-helicopter-completes-marine-resupply-032800201.html
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At what cost? Clearly you don’t know how airline management bean counters work. There has to be an large economic incentive for an airline management to take the income stream loss while the assets are down for wherever retrofits are required, not to mention the cost of infrastructure changes to support it. In terms of that cost, current crew costs are an acceptable known. Airline flying is about doing it as cheaply as possible.

Cutting edge tech costs money. Why do you think that there are SE planes equipped with G1000s, and synthetic vision but the airlines are flying planes with steam gauges and barely RNAV capable? Delta ordered the CSeries planes with the HUDS removed, as the cost to maintain them and train crews to use them is greater then any benefit they provide. The military has a different mindset as to what is an acceptable cost for doing it, not to mention any loses associated with it.
 
SFLAX said:
Just like automated cars, it’s a pipe dream. The problem is simple, a computer has to be programmed to make a decision. Humans can choose openly and outside of the box. So if two people jay walk and the exact same time, which way does the car go, computers will have that decision pre programed, maybe it’s better to do factor X that was not programmed. Flying it so fluid it will be impossible. As for the military, they accept more error. Yes, some applications will work, cargo from land to a ship okay, if it crashes it’s all good, and it’s only done in XYZ conditions. These things are all pipe dreams. I’ll just drive 78 trans am around these automated cars and watch the chaos.
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I really don’t think driverless cars will catch on like on everyone thinks. Even if they get the technology and regulations worked out most people don’t have the means to buy new cars. The average car is like 12 years old. It will be interesting.
 
Cptnchia said:
At what cost? Clearly you don’t know how airline management bean counters work. There has to be an large economic incentive for an airline management to take the income stream loss while the assets are down for wherever retrofits are required, not to mention the cost of infrastructure changes to support it. In terms of that cost, current crew costs are an acceptable known. Airline flying is about doing it as cheaply as possible.

Cutting edge tech costs money. Why do you think that there are SE planes equipped with G1000s, and synthetic vision but the airlines are flying planes with steam gauges and barely RNAV capable? Delta ordered the CSeries planes with the HUDS removed, as the cost to maintain them and train crews to use them is greater then any benefit they provide. The military has a different mindset as to what is an acceptable cost for doing it, not to mention any loses associated with it.
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The large (huge)economic incentive is doing away with the cost of pilots. How much does pilot salaries take up of the operating budget? Even if they can eliminate just half of the crew they would see a gigantic economic incentive to automate aircraft.

Plus no more fear of strikes or walkouts when pilots don’t like how management is handling things.
 
We'll be aiiiight. Every single time my EFB crashes during approach or my airplane's own automation does something weird or any other electronic device fails...it gives me the warm fuzzies. While the technology will likely arrive at some point the traveling public is on our side with regards to wanting a human presence up there. Not to mention when it all goes wrong the value of the two of us doing everything possible to save our own bacon is a great argument not to remove us.
 
Cptnchia said:
At what cost? Clearly you don’t know how airline management bean counters work. There has to be an large economic incentive for an airline management to take the income stream loss while the assets are down for wherever retrofits are required, not to mention the cost of infrastructure changes to support it. In terms of that cost, current crew costs are an acceptable known. Airline flying is about doing it as cheaply as possible.

Cutting edge tech costs money. Why do you think that there are SE planes equipped with G1000s, and synthetic vision but the airlines are flying planes with steam gauges and barely RNAV capable? Delta ordered the CSeries planes with the HUDS removed, as the cost to maintain them and train crews to use them is greater then any benefit they provide. The military has a different mindset as to what is an acceptable cost for doing it, not to mention any loses associated with it.
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FedEx paid over a million bucks a pop to convert their DC10s to remove the FE station.

HUDs don't provide a cost savings. Cutting the pilot ranks by 50% would save on the order of $2b a year in costs at the legacies. That is an annual savings, lifetime over the life of each plane roughly $18m to remove one pilot. Just rounding the numbers.
 
bike21 said:
We'll be aiiiight. Every single time my EFB crashes during approach or my airplane's own automation does something weird or any other electronic device fails...it gives me the warm fuzzies. While the technology will likely arrive at some point the traveling public is on our side with regards to wanting a human presence up there. Not to mention when it all goes wrong the value of the two of us doing everything possible to save our own bacon is a great argument not to remove us.
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Well you have a Microsoft device. If MS writes the code we're OK. If Apple does it we"re screwed. Not a single iPad issue over four years.
 
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