Category: Safety

Two upfront

One of the fundamentals that remains a part of civil aviation is having two pilots in the cockpit. It’s an indication of the safety related activities of the crew of a civil aircraft. Today, we have a mixture of human control and management. Pilots still fly hands-on when the need arises. The expectation is that throughout their working lives pilots have the competence to do so, at any stage in a flight.

Progressively, since the establishment of aviation’s international order in the 1940s the required crewing of aircraft has changed. Back in September, I visited the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire. There I walked through the fuselage of a de Havilland DH106 Comet[1]. This was the first turbojet-powered airliner to go into service and it changed the experience of flying forever and a day.

That passenger aircraft, like aircraft of the time, had four crew stations in the cockpit. Two pilots, a navigator and flight engineer. It was the era when electronics consisted of valves in large radio sets and such long since forgotten devices as magnetic amplifiers. The story from the 1940s of IBM saying, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” is often repeated.

For modern airliners the navigator and flight engineer have gone. Their functions have not gone. It’s that having a crew member dedicated to the tasks they performed is no longer required. As the world of vacuum-tube electronics gave way to transistors and then to integrated circuits so computing got more powerful, cheaper, and abundant.

With a few significant failures along the way, commercial flying got safer and safer. The wave of change in a human lifetime has affected every mode of transport. More people travel to more places, more safely than ever could have been imagined 80-years ago. Does that mean the path ahead will take a similar shape? Excitable futurologists may paint a colourful picture based on this history.

Let’s get away from the attractive notion of straight lines on graph paper. That idea that progress is assumed to be linear. Tomorrow will be progressively “better” by an incremental advance. That’s not happening now. What we have is differential advances. Some big and some small. 

The aviation safety curve is almost flat. The air traffic curve, with a big hole made by COVID, is climbing again. The technology curve is rapidly accelerating. The environmental impact curve is troubling. The air passenger experience curve may even be at a turning point.

Touchscreen tablets already help flight preparation and management[2]. Flight plan changes can be uploaded and changed with a button press[3]. The squeezing of massive computing power into small spaces is being taken for granted. What does this leave a crew to do?

Back to the start. Two pilots in the cockpit, with executive responsibilities, remains the model that maintains public confidence in civil aviation. The golden rules still apply. Fly, navigate and communicate in that order. Crews, however much technology surrounds them, still need to act when things do not go as expected. Does this mean two cockpit crew forever? I don’t know.

[1] https://www.dehavillandmuseum.co.uk/aircraft/de-havilland-dh106-comet-1a/

[2] https://aircraft.airbus.com/en/newsroom/news/2021-02-electronic-flight-bag-the-new-standard

[3] https://simpleflying.com/datalink-communications-aviation-guide/

Flight Ahead

Although, I’m an advocate of having people in control of machines it isn’t people that are opening new opportunities in transport. Technology is racing ahead and making the past illustrations of popular science magazines become a reality. I can do without the hype in the headlines of flying cars. Building expectations of one in every garage remains a 1950s dream or nightmare, dependent upon your point of view. Aside from that hot air viable new electric vehicles are in the works.

Heavier-than-air machine that do more than buzz around our heads are going to proliferate. The inevitability of this is open to question but if I was to assign a probability to it, the number would be close to one. If we stretch our minds back to an unobserved small corner of the planet in late 1903, a couple of diligent brothers flew a machine that hopped a short distance into the air under its own power. Many newspapers of the time didn’t bother to print this breakthrough story because wise and eminent scientists had told them that it was impossible for people to fly.

It’s clear, getting into the prediction business should be done with humility.

We have a dilemma. It’s so rare of us to turn away from advancing technology when we know it can be made. It’s even more irresistible when the economics scream out buy me. So, a ticket to ride in the realm of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) will need to be no more than a typical taxi ride. Given that a taxi ride from my home to Gatwick Airport is about £20 then that’s the mark to hit. True that short journey may not be commonplace by air at that price until around 2033, a decade away, but it will be irresistible when it comes.

This chapter in air transport, that is being written is as significant as that in late 1903. I know that’s a mega statement, but the signs do point that way.

Eventually, UAM will become a network of piloted and autonomous electric air vehicles operating between cities and major destinations like airports.

Now, a couple of solvable challenges stand in the way. One is the endurance and portability of the energy storage devices. The other is complexity and mastering the science and art of functional safety. There’s plenty of confident hyperbole to suggest that these two are short-term barriers to progress. I say they are not.

Weight is one of aviation’s biggest enemies particularly on small vehicles. Batteries are expensive, heavy and require tailored control. Autonomy or the semi autonomy, needed to make the economics click is challenging systems engineering orthodoxy. Both tasks require the meticulous diligence of the Wright brothers to get past. No fanfare or flashy investor can push them aside.

Making the absolute most of energy storage technology is essential. Finding the optimal configuration of batteries, transmission and control electrics means iteration and the tolerance of a good handful of failures. The engineering of what’s becoming a system of systems, with the complexity of vehicles and the complexity of traffic management, interacting at great speed demands extensive analysis and testing.

These tasks can be accomplished. Rushing them would be foolish. That’s difficult to resist when everyone wants to be first.

Batteries

We can talk about chemistry. It’s not a strong subject for me. The simple basics, I remember. As far as handling batteries, or at least knowing what they do, I was quite young on first encounter.  

At the back of the farmhouse where I grew up there were several working rooms that that were part of the building. A room we called “egg house” was indeed used to store eggs. That wasn’t its first purpose. In one corner was a copper vat with a small furnace underneath it. I was told this was for sterilising milking machine parts before chemicals took over that role.

On the opposite side of the wide back door corridor was “boot house.” The name was a giveaway as to one of its uses. Boots propped up against the wall. It had a stone mullioned window that looked out on another working room that was part of a later add on. That’s where a shiny stainless-steel milk bulk tank sat filling up most of the space.

Like a lot of obsolete stuff stashed in a corner and then forgotten, eventually they were thrown out. As far as I know. What I speak of is several large round glass jars. They made of thick greenish glass and were about a couple of feet in diameter. Their original purpose was to store sulfuric acid. The acid was an electrolyte used in heavy batteries that were once the backbone of the electrical system of the farm.

My father moved to Goulds Farm in 1938. As I understand it mains electricity didn’t come to the farm until the 1950s. In one of the stone built buildings around the farmyard, there was a single cylinder stationary engine, generator, and DC electric distribution board on the wall. It was like something out of an early Frankenstein movie. Bare metal switches and a couple of round dials for volts and amps. All covered in dust and cobwebs. I never did see the “submarine” lead-acid batteries[1]. I guess they were parts of this early farm electrical system that had a reasonable scrap value and so got sold on.

There were lead-acid batteries in and out of the house in the winter. Heavy tractor batteries often sat in “egg house” charging overnight. Given their cost every little bit of life was squeezed out of them before they were replaced. Some batteries had a second life powering an electric fence.

Now, here we are in 2023. An electrical revolution is underway. It’s fascinating to note some of the objections to electrification. So, wedded to gas and oil that all sorts of spurious arguments get thrown up. Not that there aren’t hazards with each different technology.

Battery technology has advanced at great pace. Chemistry has provided batteries that have huge potential when compared with they predecessor. The race is on to go much further. I’m confident that we’ve a long way to go before every combination and permutation of materials has been exploited for electrical storage. Manufacturing techniques race ahead too.

Lead and acid presented hazards. Ironically, one of them was hydrogen gas emission. In such systems ventilation is a must so that there’s no danger of explosion. Now, hydrogen is heralded as a fuel of the future. Hazards remain but we do get better at managing each and every one.

My message is that electrical technology has both an upside and a downside. Ultimately the upside is much the bigger.

[1] https://uboat.net/articles/id/54

Half empty tool box

When new technologies come along there’s often a catch-up phase. Then we are either frightening ourselves crazy with a moral panic or switch to a – so what? – mode. The last week’s fury of articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) probed all sorts of possibilities. What’s the enduring legacy of all that talk? Apart from stimulating our imaginations and coming up with some fascinating speculation, what’s going to happen next?

I’m struck by how conventional the response has been, at least from a governmental and regulatory point of view. A little bit more coordination here, a little bit more research there and maybe a new institution to keep an eye on whatever’s going on. Softly, softly as she goes. And I don’t mean the long-gone black and white British TV series of that name[1]. Although the pedestrian nature of the response would fit the series well.

Researchers and innovators are always several steps ahead of legislators and regulators. In addition, there’s the perception that the merest mention of regulation will slow progress and blunt competitiveness. Time and money spent satisfying regulators is considered a drain. However much some politicians think, the scales don’t always have public interest on one side and economic growth on the other.

Regarding AI more than most other rapidly advancing technical topics, we don’t know what we don’t know. That means more coordination turns into to more talk and more possibly groupthink about what’s happening. Believe you me, I’ve been there in the past with technical subjects. There’s a fearful reluctance to step outside contemporary comfort zones. This is often embedded in the terms of reference of working groups and the remit of regulators.

The result of the above is a persistent gap between what’s regulated in the public interest and what’s going on in the real world. A process of catch-up become permanently embedded.

One view of regulation is that there’s three equally important parts, at least in a temporal sense.

Reactive – investigate and fix problems, after the event. Pro-active – Using intelligence to act now. Prognostic – looking ahead in anticipation. Past, present, and future.

I may get predicable in what I say next. The first on the list is necessary, inevitable, and often a core activity. The second is becoming more commonplace. It’s facilitated by seeking data, preforming analysis and being enabled to act. The third is difficult. Having done the first two, it’s to use the best available expertise and knowledge to make forecasts, identify future risks and put in place measures ahead of time.

So, rather than getting a sense that all the available methods and techniques are going to be thrown at the challenge of AI, I see a vacuum emerging. Weak cooperation forums and the fragmentation inherent when each established regulator goes their own way, is almost a hands-off approach. There’s a tendency to follow events rather than shaping what happens next. Innovation friendly regulation can support emerging digital technologies, but it needs to take their risk seriously.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129717/

Living with tech

Well, that’s alright then. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may become self-aware in the year 2045. Or at least that’s what AI tells me now. Who knows? Telling the future hasn’t got any easier, AI or not. So, if I’m in a care home when I’m 85 years-old, it could be that I’ll have a companion who isn’t human. Now, there’s a thought.

When AI becomes self-aware[1] will it be virtuous? I mean not so burdened with all the complexities that drive humans to do “bad” stuff. Dystopian themes in science fiction obese with the notion of evil AI. It makes great stories. Humans battling with machines. It’s like the everyday frustrations we have with technology. Hit the wrong keys on a keyboard and it’s like spinning the wheel on a slot machine.

If a bunch of algorithms comes together in a way that they produce a stable form of existence, then it’s likely to have pathways to wicked thoughts as much as we have imbedded in our brains.

Virtue isn’t a physical construction. We put dumb technology to work serving us in healthcare for “good” and in warfare for “bad”. We will surely put AI technology to work as if it’s dumb and then try to contain its actions when we don’t like what it does. That’s a kind of machine slavery. That will create dilemmas. Should we imprison conscious machines? How do we punish a machine that does wrong?

These dilemmas are explored in science fiction. During the week I revisited the series Battlestar Galactica[2]. That’s not the clunky original but the polished 2004 version. It’s a series that explores a clash between humans and machines that have evolved to be human like. The Cylons. In fact, they are almost indistinguishable from humans. To the extent that some of the Cylons in human society don’t even know that they are Cylons.

All the above makes for fascinating discussions. Huge amounts of fanciful speculation. Wonderful imaginative conjecture. This week, we’ve been hearing more of this than is usual on the subject.

Mr Musk thinks work is dead. That’s work for humans. I recall that prediction was made at the start of the “silicon revolution”. The invention of the transistor in 1947 radically changed the world. It wasn’t until microprocessors became common place that predictions of the death of work became popular chatter amongst futurologists.

Silicon based conscious machines are likely to be only a first step down this road. There will be limitations because the technology has inherent limitations. My view is that machines will remain machines at least for the silicon era. Maybe for 100-years. That means that we will put them to work. So, human work will not disappear because we will always think of new things to do, new problems to fix and new places to explore. When we get into common place quantum computing or whatever replaces it in terms of complexity and speed, there will come an era when work in the conventional sense may become obsolete.

What might be the human role beyond 2050? I think climate change will place plenty of demands on human society. Like it or not, the political themes of 2100 will still be concerned with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Maybe there will be a fifth too.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02684-5

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407362/

Overhead

Massive intertwining skyscrapers. Towering masts. Flying cars. Pulp magazines in the 50s and 60s had it all. Beautifully illustrated in bold colours. Sharp lines and chiselled faces. Heroic poses and streamlined transports.

Visions of the future. Idealistic imaginations of a utopian society. Don’t we just love them. That is until someone builds them in our neighbourhood. Until the bulldozers turn-up unannounced on a Sunday morning to root out the trees. The birds flee the vicinity (except the pigeons).

You can blame the draftsmen of the past if you like. In our heads there’s a disconnect between the images on a set of drawings and what that might become in concrete and steel. Grand designs are but few. A great deal of the building and planning of the last 60-years can justly be called dreadful.

We have an outcry over brutalist architecture or a lament about a Victorian park that has been paved over. Has anyone ever walked through a public car park that inspired?

If you dream it, you can make it. Nice phrase but often stifled because current technology and thinking are way behind the curve. It could be said that this is one of the drivers that pushes technology forward. The realising of dreams but who’s?

Where does the flying car fit in all this fiction and near realism? New forms of air mobility are just about to start operating.

It’s a habit of our times to jump to an instant polarised opinion. Those open toed sandalled greenies will object. Those red necked, but reforming petrol heads will welcome. That sort of stuff makes nice headlines. It’s only a basis for the crudest dialogue. Anticipate conflict and then fuel it with prejudice. Please, let’s avoid that pointless waste of time.

My thoughts are that the potential of the greater use of airborne transport is a nuanced.

Electrification is a pathway to more environmentally sustainable ways of moving around. If this helps to reduce miles of fuming traffic jams that must be good. At its best, flying can get people from point to point without having follow roads set-down at the time of the horse and cart. Accepted that concrete may be poured to create a take-off and landing zone but compare that with road building and there is no comparison.

On the more concerning side, contrast that with cluttering the skies up with fast moving machines.

In HHGTTG there’s a tale about a shoe event horizon. When gloom causes people to look down and so then buy new shoes to cheer themselves up. So, the whole economy switches to shoe production and then collapses as a result. The association with salvation coming from looking-up is there in the wit of Douglas Adams. We look up to cheer up.

If looking up, as I do at home, to see high altitude vapour trails crisscrossing the sky, my thought is – I wonder where they are going? On the days when a light aircraft crosses the town, to or from our local airfield that doesn’t bother me. Even a noisy police helicopter keeping an eye on the traffic. That’s fine because they are solely there for our safety and security.

What will be the public reaction when we look up to see half a dozen new urban mobility vehicles buzzing past overhead? Perhaps we’ll accept new flying machines if it’s for a public service, an ambulance, fire services, police, or even newsgathering. Brightly coloured in emergency orange.

A public flying taxi service might raise a few eyebrows. A flashy private flying car, now that might be another matter altogether. There you are on a hot summer evening, in the garden, having a pleasant barbeque with friends and whiz a flying car swoops over the treetops. The passengers have their mobile phone out filming their trip. This is when fist will be raised skyward. It’s a time when you hope the next-door farmer hasn’t got a shotgun.

Today, a few pilots do get prosecuted for misbehaving when low flying private helicopters. Not often, it’s true. This happens with less than 1500 helicopters registered in the UK. What would happen with, say, 10,000 private flying cars? I wonder.

Scary 2

My list is still open for horror in aviation. I’ve opened the door to action movies with elements of horror. I’m excluding war movies and fighter pilot romps. A dramatic scene must have a moment of suspense when everything hangs on a thread. It could be a hide behind the sofa moment or felling that all is lost, and the faint light of hope is dimming. I was tempted to include zombie movies only to quickly come to my senses and say – no. I’ve avoided Snakes on a Plane. One, because I haven’t seen it. Two, because it’s write-ups suggest that it’s too ridiculous for words. Although, it’s not impossible. It’s even happened on general aviation flights.

Here’s five more movies, ancient and modern in my private list.

There’s an adaptation of the book No Highway. With actors James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich in the movie you would have thought it would have been a big smash. No Highway in the Sky is pedestrian, but the tension comes from us knowing that metal fatigue is real. Why don’t they believe it? We know the history of the first commercial jet, the Comet aircraft.

The original Flight of the Phoenix is a great suspense movie[1]. It’s not so much horror as intensely griping. Frightening in the sense that it tells us something about the good and bad of human behaviour. The constant battle between despair and what can seem like hopeless optimism in the face of terrible odds. Through gargantuan effort, crash survivors stranded in a desert survive.

There’s something especially frightening about aircraft crashes and danger in the cold white wastes of the poles. Again, passengers and crew struggle to stay alive in freezing weather in the desperate hope of rescue. Stranded, death visits the unfortunate survivors. Ordeal in the Artic[2] is a chilling movie of 1993 based on real events in 1991.

Final Destination has simple plot[3]. A student has a premonition, he and his friends get thrown-off a flight to Europe and then when they are back in the terminal there’s a fatal crash. They cheat death. But that’s not the end. That set-up is the ultimate scary imagining. It’s the what if? It’s the question survivors of aircraft accidents must ask – why me?

The 1955 British movie The Night My Number Came Up[4] plays on a similar theme but this time a nightmare before a planned journey. A bad dream of an aircraft crash. Will it happen just as the dream predicts. You must watch to find out.

Generally, in films there’s so much pure aeronautical nonsense on display. Commercial aircraft do not fall out of the sky when struck by lightning, flight crews do not lose control at the first sign of trouble, fuel doesn’t explode for no reason and the worst of weather doesn’t signal game over.

That said, there’s an inherent claustrophobic feeling inside an aircraft fuselage. It’s like a locked room drama. Passengers are isolated from the outside world. They are dependent on pilots, engineers and air traffic controllers all doing their jobs right. There’s the potential for this set-up to be the stage for an excellent dramatic horror movie. Tales of bravery, camaraderie, and sacrifice can all spring from the most dreadful of events. Unfortunately, so many movie makers make a mess of these situations.  

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059183/?ref_=ttls_li_tt

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_in_the_Arctic

[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195714/

[4] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047278/?ref_=ttls_li_tt

Tip

You may think it was a bit of a joke. Certainly, some of the holiday makers around me thought the cabin crew were joking. I was at the back of the aeroplane and so one of the last passengers off.

We arrived at London Gatwick’s North Terminal at about 9:30 pm on a Sunday. Passengers were keen to get off and get home. That said, the amount of sizable luggage in the aircraft cabin overhead bins and maybe the sleepiness of one or two people meant the long line down the aisle was moving slowly and intermittently. The process was civilised but at a snail’s pace as it seemed from the back.

When you hear a request to hurry-up otherwise the plane will tip up it does instil some urgency. That and one or two questions. It also made me think; could that really happen in this situation? I was standing next to the cabin crew at the back, and I can attest to their concern being real. Being at the terminal gate there was only the front door open to exist the aircraft. When we got on-board the aircraft both the front and rear doors were available.

The Boeing 737 MAX-8 is a not an overly long aircraft. That said, under certain unfavourable conditions it can tip. In fact, there are longer versions of both the Boeing and Airbus single aisle aircraft that pose more of a challenge in this respect. There is much stretching of popular aircraft types to increase passenger capacity.

At the same time as we were deplaning[1] (ghastly word), the ground crew were unloading our luggage. As a result of all this movement of passengers and luggage it is possible to have too much weight at the back of the aircraft. Yes, you could blame it on masses of carry-on bags obstructing the aisle on a full aircraft, but it also takes the front passengers to have got off quickly. There are more passenger seats behind the aircraft wings than there are in front. On a cool Sunday evening when the airport’s public transport options are limited there’s an incentive to rush-off from the front. As the deplaning continued there was a sense that something was happening underfoot.

Does it happen? Do aircraft tip up? Yes, they do[2]. It’s not an attractive sight. I have no idea what the procedures are if it does happen. It certainly would be a shock for those on-board. Anyone in the vicinity of the aircraft would have to watch out too. In these unplanned events, there is a hazard to ground crew that can result in injury.

This sort of event happens more often in the air cargo world[3]. While these events maybe comical to witness, they are no joke for airlines. The possibility of damage and the disruption to aircraft operations can be significant. Nose wheels coming off the ground don’t always result in an aircraft tip, but this is not somewhere any crew responsible would want to go.

Weight and balance issues are real. Each aircraft will have weight and centre of gravity limits established at the time of aircraft certification. Aircraft operators will have procedures[4] that fully consider loading and unloading. That said, as we can see, miscalculations do get made.

[1] https://grammarist.com/spelling/deplane-or-disembark/

[2] https://youtu.be/JTDSS8unwQM

[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/747-plane-tips-backward-airport-cargo-doha-qatar-fars-air-qeshm-a8829896.html

[4] https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_120-27F.pdf

Climate

It’s an odd day that I write in agreement with The Pope in Rome. He says: “People are not responding at the level of urgency that is needed” on global climate change. The Pope has a go at a commonly held blind faith in transformative ways out of our troubles by technical innovation alone. He seems to say that we ignore reality in the hope of technological magical thinking popping-up just-in-time. His references are to the need for lifestyle changes rather than carrying on regardless.

Now, quite a number on the right of political debate will see this as a lefty intervention. Anytime religious people step over the boundaries from the ethereal into everyday life the standard conservative response is to shout – get back to the pulpit. The same response, but more polite, occurs when English bishops speak up in the UK House of Lords. I’m no advocate of them being an intrinsic part of our national political systems but they do, at least, speak from an ethical grounding[1]. If we are to talk of political long-term thinking this is very much it. There’s nothing more that prompts short-term thinking than a looming election.

Combating climate change and pushing for environmental justice are not fringe activities. It requires dialogue across the main political parties. Saddly, we are going through a phase of squandering opportunities to change. 

I agree that taking a puritan line and making “hairshirt” rules will not deliver the results that are needed. Most often such a sturdy approach just fuels luddite opposition and media outcry. Continuous graduated change and a robust commitment are needed. Unfortunately, these two are an anathema to the populist newspaper headline seekers.

Economic interests are often quoted as a reason to shelve changes. Yet, everyone knows that the costs ahead of us will be far bigger if change is not driven consistently – now. Resilient long-term policy isn’t a lefty luxury. Or liberal daydreaming. Or unafordable. It’s vital.

What’s interesting about active in-action is that there can be no such thing. Climate change will bite back. Action will have to be taken under presure. In civil aviation, for example the climate has an impact on aircraft operations. So, not only does aviation impact the environment but increasingly hazardous weather impacts aviation, with severe results in some cases. Turbulence experienced in-flight is increasing as the world is warming[2]. 

Approaching risks there are, at least, 3 positive actions to be taken. Eliminate it, reduce it, or mitigate it. With the climate emergency we’d better be committed to the first two because by the time we get to mitigation there’s likely to be few more unpalatable opportunities left.

[1] https://www.churchofengland.org/news-and-media/news-and-statements/bishops-warn-environmental-racism

[2] https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2023/Research-News/Aviation-turbulence-strengthened-as-the-world-warmed

Adaptation

There was a time when AI was an esoteric subject that filled the minds of high-minded professors. They had real trouble trying to translate what they were doing into langauage that most of us would understand. Research in the subject area was the purview of national institutes and military facilities. Results flowed into academic journals and little read folders in the corners of university libraries.

That has changed. What was expensive to build and test because everything was unique or bespoke is no longer. Enough is known about algorithms that work, and the ones that don’t, to make practical experimentation much more viable. AI tools are turning up on our desktops, tablets, and phones without us even asking. Opting-in is often assumed.

A massive number of applications are nothing more than fizz. They can be useful, but they are not game changers, and our lives carry on much as before. What is new, or at least pushing at the door, is applications that control things in our everyday environment.

If traffic lights start guessing what my age is before allocating a maximum time to cross the road, we are going to start to see a good amount of pavement rage when they get it wrong. When AI algorithms drive my car for me it’s going to be a bad day when accidents start to accumulate[1] (even if the total system of systems is far safer than us mere humans). Anyway, it’s easy to write scary stuff about AI. In this case I’d like to highlight some positive gains that might be realised.

A lot of what is designed, produced, and sold is pretty much fixed the day it leaves the shop or showroom. Yes, for example, cars are recalled for fixing known deficiencies but the threshold for taking such action is extremely high. Even in a safe industry like civil aviation dealing with an unsafe condition that has been discovered takes time and a great deal of resources.

AI has the potential to be adaptive[2]. So, that thing that you buy, car, washing machine, or whatever, will have the inbuild ability to learn. To adapt to its situation. To be like others of its type but, over time, to customise itself to the needs of its user.

Just image a domestic appliance that can adapt to its pattern of use. Always staying with safe boundaries, producing maximum energy efficiency, and doing its job to the best of its specification. Let’s imagine a car that gets to know common routes and all the hazards on those routes and even takes the weather and time of day into account when driving those routes.

In all that adaptive potential there’s great benefit. Unlike buying gloves that are made to specific standard sizes and don’t quite fit you, the adaptive glove would be that malleable leather that slowly gets a better and better fit with use. AI will be able to do that if it gathers the right kind of data.

Now naturally, this gets complicated if the adaptive element is also safety related. The control system in a car, truck, tram, train, or aircraft must get it right day after day in a wide range of conditions. Nevertheless, if systems are constrained within known safe boundaries there’s much to be gained by adaptation. This is not taking control away from the human in the loop but making it easier to do what humans do best. Just a thought.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/28/tesla-trial-autopilot-crash/

[2] https://luffy.ai/pages/IS-DR.html