Originally Posted by
tdracer
Jcbmack - you're still making the fundamental error of applying the current state to something decades in the future. Compare today's computing capability to what it was 50 years ago (your digital watch has more computing capability than the Lunar Module did when they landed on the moon - never mind what your phone can do), then try to extrapolate that another 50 years into the future. Sure, sensor failures are a problem, but with orders of magnitude more computing capability available (and cheaper), you might have a dozen redundant sensors instead of today's two or three. Today's computers still struggle with the basic vision that the human Mk 1 eyeball is capable of, but that's improving rapidly and the computer's vision isn't limited to what the human eyeball can do - plus the computer can look at 360 degrees in all three dimensions simultaneously - something we humans can only fantasize about. FBW and FADEC were greeted with massive skepticism when they started coming on-line 40 years ago (and yes, I heard the naysayers who claimed they'd never fly on an aircraft so equipped) - today nobody would even dream of designing a new aircraft without them. Meanwhile, human capabilities are not meaningfully different than they were 50 years ago and pilot error has become the leading cause of aircraft accidents (the MAX fiasco not withstanding).
Like I originally posted, it won't happen soon - my prediction is 40 to 50 years - but assuming that humankind doesn't manage to kill itself off in the meantime, the time will come when fully autonomous aircraft are not just common, like FBW and FADEC, they will have become the norm.
BTW, I'm not sure when this became about Boeing (given the discussion started regarding an Airbus project), but calling the 787 "worthless" unfortunately reveals your bias. In spite it's early difficulties, it's become the most successful new widebody in history - with just shy of a thousand aircraft delivered less than 9 months after EIS - no other widebody is even in the ballpark to those numbers.
I agree with you tdracer, there will be many more amazing computing power advances. Moore's law is still in effect, even though there is evidence it might be on a slow-down soon, computing efficiency is still rapidly advancing. Yeah, smartphones are amazing; for example, I have the Samsung S20 Ultra, and it is an elegant computing system in itself. I also agree that autonomous systems are necessary and significantly useful. More specifically to sensor issues, we are seeing many errors in biometric research, and CV (computer vision) based differentiation issues, even in the top-funded companies and Universities--unforeseen issues keep popping up. It is not that human capabilities are significantly different, though Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience research has helped humans enhance performance here and there. It is more humans do certain things way better than computerized systems, and certain types of judgment are one of these salient things. While Deep-Learning Neural Networks can analyze more data faster and discern patterns, and technically the more data NNs can process the more accurate the generalization can become, they sometimes analyze meaningless variables, or process detrimental actions as useful, where on average a human would not do so. I also agree that the sensors will get better, but we need a more effective way to switch off when manual control over actions (like trim) is necessary, and more efficient ways to check sensor operations.
The 40-50 year timeline, I think we will see a plethora of technological improvements and more ML involved in autonomous systems as a whole. I am just conservative about what the systems' consistent output capabilities will be.
More beer here! Happy Fourth!