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Comment by agubelu | Hacker News Reader

You have listed the correct actions to take in each scenario, but it's still not at all obvious to me how each case would be fully automated, start to finish. I would like more specifics, besides simply

  if(conesOnTheRunway) {
      closeRunway();
      rerouteAircraftOnGround();
      rerouteAircraftOnAir();
      pickUpCones();
      reopenRunway();
  }

Since I took the time to compile a list of examples that you sadly didn't find surprising enough, I would appreciate it if you returned the courtesy and provided a more concrete design of a fully automated ATC system using current technology.

> Trivially handled by video game-grade AI.

I think it's fairly likely I have played more flight simulator games than you have. If you know of a single one of them where the ATC AI isn't utterly stupid, please do let me know, I'd love to try it. There's a reason VATSIM exists and remains very popular :)

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First of all, to the extent controllers are "surprised" by any of those events, you're making my point for me.

Second, I wasn't referring to ATC AI in flight sims; as you suggest I have no experience with that. I doubt anyone ever put any serious effort into flight sim ATC AI compared with AI for realtime strategy or even FPS games. Years ago, a primitive neural net dragged a 9-dan Go master up and down the ban, so I imagine our current tech can handle a few planes.

I'm not paid to redesign the ATC system, or qualified to do so (although that won't stop Musk, I'm sure.) But as I've made clear, I believe it can and probably should be done. In practice it would probably look more like

    if (AircrewOrEmployeesReportForeignObjectOnRunway) 
    {
    closeRunwayAndRedirectTraffic();
    alertFacilityPersonnel();
    leaveRunWayClosedUntilSomeoneInAuthorityReopensIt();
    }

So many of the things you mention are simply not in ATC's wheelhouse to begin with. Their job is to keep things moving (or not) while other people in authority deal with those situations. That part wouldn't change, as I see it.

Thanks for replying. I won't continue this conversation as it seems to me you don't actually have any specific evidences of your claim besides "I believe it can be done", and don't actually know much about the responsibilities and areas of authority of ATC.

I'd say the burden of proof belongs with those who argue that it's impossible to automate ATC while maintaining at least the current safety record. That's an extraordinary claim at this point.

I asked for examples of situations that couldn't be handled through automation, you provided some that I consider invalid or inapplicable, and... well, there we are. GG

I enjoyed the thread, and thanks for compiling the list, but I have to add, I haven't found them surprising either.

Automation doesn't have to mean "level 5+: ATC AI on, let's go find an extended happy hour"

I think it's very important to separate the software engineering (and systems engineering, and safety and process design, and other disciplines involved on the object-level) from the challenges at the meta-level (politics, legal liability - insurability, scaling and economics, and procurement issues, avoiding yet another too big to fail boondoggle, and so on).

One obvious problem is that by definition someone sitting there doing their shift has a very holistic view, and asking them what do they need to do their job better might not worth it economically. (The faster horse problem. Though sending a few enthusiastic designers there, also crunching the numbers of the past near-misses and other issues would likely reveal gaps in the current procedures and tools, and ... and of course this all then runs aground because changing procedures and tools is hard, hello FAA, etc.) But, but, of course doing the top-to-bottom design naively is almost a surefire way to burn a few quick billion bucks for nothing. (So, I think this should be something like an ongoing challenge, like the DARPA Grand Challenge for driverless cars.)

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