AI Could One Day Be Co-Pilot On Planes, Says Emirates President

When flying on a plane, one of the main comforts is knowing that there are two professional people up ahead with the right set of skills, training, and abilities to get passengers out of a situation. In the future, that might not be the case.

 
The insurgence of artificial intelligence is poised to seep into almost every industry right now, but are we ready for it to be seen in airplanes as well? 
 
In a report to CNBC, Emirates president Tim Clark stated that AI is set to have “a big impact” on the aviation sector, “with one-pilot planes a possibility.”

 
It would seem that the executive believes AI will soon reach a stage where it can replace the need for a co-pilot, and handle all tasks instead. In theory, it might sound like a good way to get around crew shortages, and could make for a more cost-friendly approach for the presiding company of the aircraft. Still, it’s hard to imagine passengers willingly putting their lives into the proverbial hands of a machine.
 
Interesting Engineering points out that in the 1950s, piloting crews had five members: a navigator, a flight engineer, and a radio operator. These were all separate jobs that eventually translated into technological advancements. As the members were eventually knocked down to two, this new era of AI could play a hand in reducing that number down to one.
 
Currently, a lot of the flying process is handled by computers, and most of the time, the plane is in autopilot mode. The option of having two pilots is so one can take over if the other becomes incapacitated. But AI might soon be able to do just that and even land aircrafts at designated airports in case of an emergency.
 
Though, when up in the sky, many things could happen, and there might not always be the option to land a plane at an airport. In that sense, pilots are not too sure of the idea of such a move as a human will still be needed to take the aircraft to safety, for example, over water or in other tricky situations that AI is not be programmed to handle.
 
All that said, the implementation for such technologies is still a long way off, and much testing and adjusting of society to the idea needs to happen before something like this can take place.
 
 
 
[via Interesting Engineering and Fortune, Photo 68542620 © Mustafa Sandikci | Dreamstime.com]