Originally Posted by
Auxtank
That problem is examined and answered so well in that book above as he mulls over Asimov's Three Laws.
It has not been answered satisfactorily in any conference I've attended.
Computers making control decisions in life/death scenarios? They handle nominal situations very well and are used routinely in the industry.
However, they fail. They always will. They are complex. They rely on a consistent sequence of reliable events all the way from the power source through to the outputs. They rely on the expertise of the thousands of designers and coders.
I've worked on major systems for decades. Mature technologies, with massive redundancy. They still occasionally fail.
Applying a patch on reasonably placid systems performing simple functions can takea month or so as it passes through change control/test/user acceptance cycle.
You know what? Even after that cycle of rigorous testing, it can still introduce failures.
If I were to be involved in any autonomous flight project... well, I said walk away. Maybe I wouldn't. My costs, for development and ongoing support would far exceed those charged by a pilot, though.
Several thousand people providing 24/7 expert support (we're speaking third level rather than helpline) will not come cheap.
And I repeat the risk inherent in a single error being propagated across multiple users.
I am no technophobe. I've been in the industry for decades. I would never fly on a craft which relied entirely on code.