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DARPA Advances AI Program For Air Traffic Control
coondoggie writes to tell us that DARPA has taken the next step in a program that aims to utilize artificial intelligence for the purposes of air traffic control. "GILA will also help Air Force planners use and retain the skills of expert operators, especially as they rotate out of the Air Force. DARPA says the artificial intelligence software will learn by assembling knowledge from different sources — including generating knowledge by reasoning. According to a Military & Aerospace item, such software has to combine limited observations with subject expertise, general knowledge, reasoning, and by asking what-if questions."
I don't trust people to do this job, so why the hell would I trust a computer?
They don't drink, they don't smoke pot, they don't get tired, inattentive, they don't have wife/husband/kid problems, no financial problems and also no mental ones.
Some of us got a new hip installed by a robot, so why not trust a computer to tell our plane the right things, especially since their colleagues are already flying the planes most of the time.
This is about what Air Force types call "Airspace Deconfliction". In any major war today, you've got all sorts of players using the airspace. There are bombers, some of which don't show on radar. There are tankers for the bombers. There are fighters zooming around, UAVs, helicopters, and missiles. Plus there's ground antiaircraft fire and artillery. And that's just our side; the enemy has their stuff, and it has to be found, identified, and avoided or targeted.
All this has to be coordinated, at least loosely. Coordination today is mostly at the level of "this area/altitude is reserved for this group", with preplanning of who fits where. That works until the enemy crosses the lines, which, if they're not totally incompetent, they will. Then plans have to be changed in a hurry.
Systems to deal with a mess like that could be a big help if they can be made to work.
Before trying something as ambitious as routing airplanes, why not see if they can route luggage?
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First off, given the political nature of the FAA this system won't be live anytime during the next few decades, maybe not even during your lifetime. Secondly, ATCs are among the most stressful jobs you can actually do. The burnout rate on your average controller is insane, even with their extensive mandatory vacations and shift rotations. They're also getting harder and harder to replace and train as the number of airplanes in the sky increases with each year. It certainly won't be any less stressful once ADS-B is finally deployed and the inter-plane distances are decreased to increase the number of birds sharing the airspace.
I read the internet for the articles.
This sounds like they're setting themselves up for one of the less predictable problems with the expert systems of the '80s: namely the fact that experts sometimes don't want to transfer their hard-acquired knowledge into a box designed to replace them. But given that this is the Air Force, "orders" might be the solution.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
"GILA will also help Air Force planners use and retain the skills of expert operators, especially as they rotate out of the Air Force"
The experts in question are leaving the air force and taking knowledge with them. The AI is not replacing a person being layed off.
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are at the arrival gate.
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