09-28-2024, 03:19 PM
It's not necessarily AI making a decision and then 'people' acting upon it; we've had automation for decades. Pre-programmed events based on certain conditions. One of the big things in business sectors lately has been eliminating 'heads' (people) through automation. How long will it be before people have that "Ah HA!" moment and figure out they can hook AI to automated processes to eliminate people executing the seemingly 'dumb' tasks. Just look what happened on the flight decks of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft with the MCAS systems. Smarter than the pilot, eh??? Yeah, look how that worked out, and that wasn't even AI (just automation). How long before they put AI behind the 'SCRAM' switch on a nuke reactor? Or behind the 'Fire' button on a nuke. Or...behind the yoke of a commercial aircraft (because hey, AI and automation is smarter than a human, right?)
Incidentally, automation has been sneaking into commercial aviation for a quite a long while now. Remember when there used to be a Flight Engineer on the flight deck? Gone now, to automation. Remember when the yoke of the aircraft used to be physically connected to the flight control surfaces? Gone now, most fly by wire now. Do some of these automated systems work for the betterment of systems and man? Absolutely they do. But what happens when you replace the human brain with AI, and then couple these things to that same automation? Bad ju-ju will likely abound.
It's not a matter of "If"; it's a matter of "When". Sooner or later some company will opt to save a buck and put AI in charge of a mission critical system...and then we'll be sorry.
"No", you say? Okay, then where are these safeguards over AI today? AI development is proceeding at breakneck pace, so where are these controls to put boundaries on what AI will be allowed to do and control? (crickets) That's where.
Incidentally, automation has been sneaking into commercial aviation for a quite a long while now. Remember when there used to be a Flight Engineer on the flight deck? Gone now, to automation. Remember when the yoke of the aircraft used to be physically connected to the flight control surfaces? Gone now, most fly by wire now. Do some of these automated systems work for the betterment of systems and man? Absolutely they do. But what happens when you replace the human brain with AI, and then couple these things to that same automation? Bad ju-ju will likely abound.
It's not a matter of "If"; it's a matter of "When". Sooner or later some company will opt to save a buck and put AI in charge of a mission critical system...and then we'll be sorry.
"No", you say? Okay, then where are these safeguards over AI today? AI development is proceeding at breakneck pace, so where are these controls to put boundaries on what AI will be allowed to do and control? (crickets) That's where.
