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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

So why was the human able to fix the problem and the machine not? Perhaps the machine has an arbitrary deadline whereas the human measures the progress of the actual boarding process, in which case the fix is to build that into the machine. Perhaps they use differential "deadlines" as a way to subtly discriminate against undesirables customers, in which case the clear light of automation probably improves matters overall.

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Perhaps it is because machines are based on pure reason and strict logic, and passenger terminals are apparently based on the exact opposite of that.~

I put forth a guess that airline passenger terminals have not been made more efficient with automation because that would expose just how inefficient the airline is away from the public areas of the terminal. The ground crew service has to be automated first, in order to actually see any benefits.

For instance, boarding procedures are intentionally inefficient, for two reasons. If the passengers boarded quickly, and in an orderly fashion, they would just have to wait even longer for the ground crew to prepare for departure. And the first-class passengers have to be guaranteed space in the first-come-first-served overhead bins. That's really the only reason to board early. If you don't have a carry-on bag, you might as well wait until just before they disconnect the boarding ramp, because they will still be loading bags and running checklists at that time.

The baggage claim areas are intentionally hard to reach from the embarkation areas, because people will have to wait for their bags when they get there anyway.

A lot of the inconveniences you experience as a passenger in the airport are there by design.

So I would further guess that the arbitrary check-in deadline exists as a method to resolve overbooking conflicts. If that particular flight had been overbooked, the human could not have done anything other than offer a conciliatory apology and some compensatory voucher, depending on their mood and your demeanor. The deadline conceals the fact that the airlines sometimes sell the same seat to multiple people.

If the anti-labor argument were taken to the extreme, the explanation should be that the machine was programmed by humans, who gossip and hate their jobs. At the end of the day, the machine is still a human touch point, albeit an abstract one.

To the extent that we can automate the programming of the machine, we should (and the history of programming is full of that - e.g. on the earliest computers assembling was done by hand, but this was repetitive, mechanistic work so people wrote assembler programs instead).

That sort of thought has interesting philosophical implementations. You're positing that when our creations interact with others, we are unconsciously the ones interacting with others.

To a deeper extent, when you create and then raise a child, and your child grows up and interacts with others, that is also a case of you unconsciously interacting with others.

Follow the chain of creative identity backwards in time to the beginning, and you end up with the cause of the universe, whatever that may be, unconsciously interacting with itself, through everyone and everything.

It's not very relevant, and perhaps not even important, but it's an interesting perspective :)

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

- Alan Watts

I would imagine that fewer causal links would indicate higher relevancy. That is to say, chains of different length shouldn't always be considered the same.

Something tells me that by the time that machine gets fixed the guy will have already lost his flight.

Building the actual boarding process into the software probably isn't as easy as you think, and airline ticketing is a long list of edge cases. I'm not a particularly frequent flyer, but the following scenarios from my own recent experiences spring to mind:

- "Your computer systems somehow completely failed to notify me in advance you cancelled my flight. Your airline has a legal obligation to book me on an alternative route, and pay compensation in the event of a significant delay."

- "I've followed your suggestion and been all round the airport looking for somewhere to print my ticket confirmation details, but can't find anywhere, and it's 11pm. Look, it's on my laptop screen."

- "Would you like a complimentary upgrade? You'll need to change your shoes first to comply with our business class policy, mind you"

- "We're overbooked, would you be interested in the option of a £500 and a hotel stay overnight? Any questions?"

- "You don't have an onward ticket? Not even a boat or bus ticket yet? OK, despite experiences you may have had with other airlines, we're strict on enforcing that country's visa policy, so you'll have to buy one. Here's the cheapest we sell, and this is the process for obtaining a refund after landing."

- "Oh, you've got a ticket with that airline, have you? We've got a codeshare agreement now - would you like us to put your bags through?"

- "The flight is delayed for five hours, here's your complimentary meal"

- "Look, I understand that your 777 has significantly fewer seats than the 747 it's replaced at short notice, but we're some of the first people to arrive, why would you bump us off? We're travelling on business so we need to be there and aren't at all interested in your compensation package. Yes, we have to be there on that day, for a trade show. No, we're not frequent flyers with your airline, but if it makes a difference a colleague of ours just got headhunted to a VP position in your airline. Yes, he sits next to us for the next month. Oh, there are seats available now?"

Needless to say, even where software can be written to deal with these edge cases, keeping it up to date with the latest issues isn't cheap, especially when you need (inexpensive) staff hanging around your kiosks just to deal with people that don't understand how to use them anyway.

Discrimination tends to happen in reverse, with special privileges created for customers that have a particularly strong need to travel, customers that have suffered from the airline's cockup, situations where customers need extra help etc. It's difficult to argue that "Computer says no" is an overall improvement on that.

> You'll need to change your shoes first to comply with our business class policy

Which airline, if you don't mind my asking?

Singapore Airlines. I was in flip flops at the time, tbf, and they didn't mind the boardshorts :D

> Discrimination tends to happen in reverse, with special privileges created for customers that have a particularly strong need to travel, customers that have suffered from the airline's cockup, situations where customers need extra help etc. It's difficult to argue that "Computer says no" is an overall improvement on that.

I think it is, overall. Fixing problems may take a bit longer but they'll get fixed for everyone, rather than ad-hoc fixing it for upper-class folks who are friends with VPs and hanging the regular folks out to dry.

But the point is that the problem of the last-minute substitution of a smaller aircraft for maintenance issues isn't something the kiosk software is going to fix. Hell, the kiosk software can't even attempt to remedy simple problems like there being a lot of people needing the flight which departs in thirty minutes stuck in the queue behind the people on the flight which departs in three hours, never mind figure that it's probably not fair to prevent someone who's missed the cutoff time by thirty seconds as a result of the queue from trying to run to the gate.

Disgruntled business people missing part of the trade show they'd bought the flights for, the couple of club scheme members the algorithm prioritises boarding the flight instead of being offered the option of cash compensation and masses of free points for flying tomorrow they might have actually preferred and a VP getting a flea in his ear for the worst airline service ever probably leaves everyone strictly worse off than before. Not to mention how much more incredibly rude it appears to the average person if an airline informs people they can't board the flight they're waiting for via the passport scan machine rather than a sympathetic human that's just going to ring a couple of people to check whether there's anything that can be done.

To be fair, if the machine also tells me it deposited the cost of the ticket back in my account, plus $500, and gives me the option of either 1) A hotel stay and a ticket for tomorrow, printed right there, 2) A list of other flights going to the same destination today, which I can book/check-in from the terminal.

The pain is a lot less, though possibly still slightly less unsympathetic, depending on the mood of the attendant you'd otherwise have gotten.

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