> 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.

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sandworm101 3 days ago | parent [-]

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

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DoctorOetker 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I doesn't sound ethical to eject passengers while aborting an approach, regardless of precise timing.

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cucumber3732842 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 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.

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ButlerianJihad 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I sincerely doubt that pilots decide "when to eject a passenger". Mostly it would be the cabin crew: the flight attendants are 100% in charge of flight safety, and they would be managing relationships with passengers, and they would be the ones to make the call. It would ultimately be them calling some kind of law enforcement. If an Air Marshal is onboard already, obviously they would be on the front line as well.

Furthermore, the concept of "ejecting a passenger" from a flight would mostly not be something you do while in the air, unless you're nuts. Ejecting a passenger is either done before takeoff, or your crew decides to divert the flight, or continue to the destination and have law enforcement waiting on the tarmac.

Naturally, pilots get involved when it's a question of where to fly the plane and when to divert, but ultimately the cabin crew is also involved in those decisions about problem passengers.

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rounce 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The Pilot in Command has ultimate legal responsibility over the operation of the flight, ICAO conventions explicitly state this. Whilst in practice the cabin crew will be the ones dealing with the passenger(s) and supplying information to the PIC , it won’t be them making the final decision.

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sandworm101 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

No. Cabin crew recommend. Pilots actually decide.

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ButlerianJihad 3 days ago | parent [-]

Do the pilots also decide whether to issue a parachute to the ejected passenger?

	▲	stnikolauswagne 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Pretty sure ejection here is meant as shorthand for "Transfer the passenger to an entity on the ground to proceed from there" whether that entity is emergency medical services or law enforcement is secondary.