PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Computers need to know what they are doing
Old 16th Aug 2016, 20:47
  #33 (permalink)  
Derfred
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 265
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
em3ry,

You are so busy repeating yourself I don't think you are actually doing any thinking.

"The cause of the accident was the activation of the angle of attack protection system which, under a particular combination of vertical gusts and windshear and the simultaneous actions of both crew members on the sidesticks, not considered in the design, prevented the aeroplane from pitching up and flaring during the landing."
This has been quoted at you twice, and you don't seem to have comprehended it.

The point of this quote was that this scenario could NOT have been simulated in advance by the computer because no-one predicted this scenario in advance.

You say:

thats why it needs to run a simulation in real time with current conditions
so it can know what is happening and take appropriate action
What are these "current conditions" you speak of and how are they relevant to the quoted scenario? How could the computer have predicted the combination of vertical gust, windshear and simultaneous actions of the crew members?

As for AI being not far off, they've been saying that for decades. What is often not discussed is that there is a difference between "simulated AI" and "real AI". Real AI is real intelligence. That would be handy, but that is a looong way off. However simulated AI is not real intelligence, it's just a pre-programmed dumb machine. That's what the Google Car will be. If you throw something at it that the programmers have not thought of, game over.

In principle, however, I think I agree with your general point that predictive systems such as TCAS, EPGWS and Predictive Windshear could (and very likely will) be expanded upon to extend to other predictions and warnings. A dynamic warning system for runway overruns (takeoff and landing) wouldn't be that hard and could save a lot of regular incidents/accidents.

But then again we come back to your "simulate with current conditions" argument. What are the current conditions and how does the aircraft know them? How is it going to know the friction co-efficient of a contaminated runway? It won't. So your argument might save the day sometimes, but not always.

Where to draw the line in the human/computer interface will continue to be controversial. The two largest aircraft manufacturers don't agree, and the recent trend from both manufacturers is that the pilots have been pushed a little too far out of the loop - they are now trying to bring them back in.

Three recent high profile crashes (Asiana, Air Asia and Air France) have all been put down to lack of basic flying skills. You either take the pilots out all together or you let them fly the aircraft. You can't just have them sit there doing nothing and be expected to save the day when the computer gives up.
Derfred is offline