Don’t worry, pilotless airliners will work better without any glitches. Because technology designed and made by humans doesn’t fail, as SWA has shown.
Knowing this may strike a chord or two, it’s my thought exactly. Maybe someone could explain why I’m silly to wonder about it? I know I’m old now and not the demographic of the future, but the failure issue and potential to break security seems to be a real (if only potential) threat. If one group can design a “foolproof system,” there will almost certainly be another group doing their best to work around it.
Recognizing there is a difference between “glitches” and intentional “hacks” into a system- and only being nominally aware of certain high profile events - it still seems that neither data nor operational systems are completely immune to interference.
I recall reading that the military (either Pentagon or one of the branches) was hacked a couple years ago. Likely low level, it does suggest to a troglodyte such as moi that there are those looking to delve deeper into such areas. There can be no denying that major banks, investment firms and corporations have, in fact, experienced real security breaches that expose clients and customers to the potential for fraud and loss. Not that I ever did, but I still can’t cash a check at Walmart because three men used my identity on a trip through the south to rip the company off under my name with personal information they stole from my health insurance company through Putnam County. The State of Louisiana, wherein the three were arrested, has a tremendous follow-up with victims of crime, and I still get regular emails about the status, new court appearances and so forth of the perpetrators (who are now serving jail time). I was only one of several hundred people whose “identities“ they stole from supposedly savvy and secure businesses.
Point being (and without caring much about Walmart), are we honestly at the place wherein a bad guy or gal absolutely CAN’T hack a transportation system for a wrongful purpose (either on land, sea, or in the air)? I sure as hell doubt they’ll stop trying.
While personal anecdotes aren’t proof positive, I can’t begin to tell you the number of times (for a multitude of reasons) that emergency services has been compromised over the years because of equipment or software failure, and - yes - in at least a couple of cases because of hacking into a system. The cause might range from a mouse chewing wires at a junction box through cable/fiber fires on transmission lines or sending/receiving facilities to car accidents that take down poles or equipment. Both the County Sheriff and the 911 Center experienced electronic “attacks” on several occasions during my 15 years of service. The 911 Center had stand-alone servers (not connected to the County site itself but still connected to a range of other (supposedly) secure online agencies. It just didn’t always work the way it was supposed to, and while there were always work-arounds, it was time-consuming to detect the issue(s), deal with them, and use alternate methods to get help to people in need.
Mock me if you will, but this has been my experience. I suspect that pilotless air transport, driverless cars and engineerless trains, will be found within a younger person’s lifetime. Just saw an interesting video that noted the “weak link” in systems which people generally provide, with up to 70% attributable to “human error.” Damned machines will likely do better, but I’m not getting into a driverless car with Todd, even if I can enjoy a fine Martini in the back.
As noted, I’m old now. YMMV.