this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago

a data analytics tool that will help advance the agency’s modernization objectives for aviation safety.

SMART will cost $12 billion, and will supposedly help flight controllers schedule flights weeks in advance to cut down on delays.

“This software will say, ‘well, listen, we can see this 45 days out. Let’s move some of those flights a little bit later, or five, seven, 10 minutes earlier, and we can resolve the issue. And so then you are not delayed,'” Duffy said.

Nothing in any of the facts as reported there suggest the use of language models, except for the editorialising in the summary about how LLMs hallucinate things, which makes me wonder about how competent Futurism's tech journalism is.

[–] 6stringringer@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 hours ago

Will this affect my miles program? Anyways, I’m gearing the family up for the exciting trip of a lifetime. We are going to reenact a trace of the Lewis & Clark trail for seven days. It will be in August along the Great Plains. With nothing but authentic gear of the time allowed. The kids should love it.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

LOL. Fuck that. I'm not flying.

[–] Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org 5 points 4 hours ago

Forget flying, you'll be getting Donnie Darkoed in your bedroom.

[–] Prior_Industry@lemmy.world 11 points 8 hours ago

Powered by Grok?

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago

Well, once the mistakes start to pile up I will probably get a lot less judgement from others about my apprehension of flying.

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 10 points 8 hours ago

Yet another reason not to go to the USA.

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago

Oh helllll to the nawh nawh nawh

[–] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 10 points 9 hours ago

We just need one rich asshole in a private jet to crash due to ATC failure for them to care.

[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I tried to use AI to install a reverse osmosis water system yesterday, I asked it to look at manual for hose colors to match them, I figured it would save me a few mins.

After an hour of it not working and trying all sorts of nonsense I looked in manual to have it show me it had given me all the wrong information to a simple task.

I can't wait to have people's lives reliant on this technology.

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

AI is a pretty big catch-all term. If they mean specially designed and trained deep learning neural nets, maaaaybe it'll be okay. If they mean typical LLMs we're straight up fucked.

[–] RogueJello@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Exactly. With a broad enough term those computerized screens showing the position of all the planes is "AI".

[–] phx@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I just saw an ad for using ChatGPT to "come up with new recipes and baking ideas"

Yeah I'm sure having a bunch of people decide to eat whatever a hallucinating AI comes up with isn't going to be dangerous at all...

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I'll look it up and try to find it. But I'm pretty sure there's a YouTube video where they actually did ask Chat GPT to come up with new recipes and baking ideas and then they tried to make them to the results you would expect.

Edit: ok, so it looks like there are a whole lot of YouTubers making AI recipes to the expected results. So Google away.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Ah, the blameless AI got people killed. Sue the company, then whittle it down because no raindrop programmer was responsible for the flood that killed hundreds, then wait for people to give up in appeals while the lawyers get rich.

[–] Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 13 hours ago (6 children)

So when, and i do mean when, this results in a crash, who will be held responsible?

[–] Kommeavsted@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

Obviously it's the DEI

[–] Aneb@lemmy.world 33 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

Hillary with her butterymales?

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 13 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Well we have already had deaths due to the current crunch (and not paying them) of us air traffic controllers.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/laguardia-collision-air-traffic-control-ntsb-9.7140479

And who was blamed for those? Oh yeah the traffic controllers! So when grok starts seeing how many 737s can fit in the same physical space, it will be the controllers fault. As you can imagine this will make those controllers want to quit, meaning more pressure to use shit like AI tools.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 hours ago

If it's the ATC then it's their fault, if it's AI then it's no one's.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 12 hours ago

Fortunately the world is going to run out of aviation fluid next week so we won't have to find out.

[–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

I really have zero reason to fly now. The risk is way to high under this fascist administration.

[–] dipcart@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

The next 9/11 will be AI powered. A.I. Qaeda is a truly terrifying prospect.

[–] leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl 17 points 13 hours ago

when you have the pilot and microslop copilot:

for entertainment purposes only

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 28 points 15 hours ago

We don't have enough air traffic controllers.

We use AI to reduce their workload. <---- We are here

We don't need as many air traffic controllers.

We sack more air traffic controllers.

We don't have enough air traffic controllers.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 12 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Fuck AI for this, but there's a lot of room in ATC for further automation. To be perfectly honest, if the planes can more or less land themselves, and they're all fly-by-wire, I could see nearly automating the whole thing. Phase it in over a 10-year plan... computers HAVE to be able to be better at this than one unpaid, overworked, under-rested controller.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 11 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

I'm all for automation if it works and if it improves safety but as far as I know they haven't proven that yet. I'd like to see an AI air traffic controller running in a simulation for many many years of simulation time first before we would even begin to talk about implementing it in real hardware.

[–] limelight79@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

That's the problem. No one wants to test Ai like that. Just dive right in and use it, I'm sure it's great!

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[–] BlackAura@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Counterpoint: just look at the Air Canada crash that recently happened where a controller let a fire truck cross in the path of a landing aircraft.

Planes may have all this technology but that only involves what's happening in the air, not on the ground.

Now maybe all ground crew could have vehicles equipped with transponders and tracked as well, but there are also incidents of people randomly ending up on the runways / taxiways, or animals, or non airport vehicles.

[–] piranhaconda@mander.xyz 3 points 12 hours ago

With the amount of AI powered cameras being put up around cities around the world... Yea they could use tech like that to monitor runways too

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

AI is fine for this... assuming we're talking about a specifically trained machine learning model that is actually made to handle ATC and not just shoehorning an LLM into a job it was never intended to do.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 3 points 8 hours ago

Honestly, I'd put it at too high a risk for weighted models. We have ton's of pathfinding navigation code out there that could solve this outright on a raspberry pi :) not that i'd reccomend the pi...

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

So even flying over America without landing there is going to become dangerous.

Best choose flights with Polar routes, going the other way around or which fly over South America instead.

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[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 18 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Prompt unclear, plane stuck in skyscraper.

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[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 44 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

My mistake, you’re absolutely right -- I neglected to ensure the runway was clear before scheduling that landing. Please accept my apologies for causing those deaths. I’m really glad to be working with you, it’s reassuring that you’ll always keep me honest. You’re not just an assistant traffic controller -- you’re a friend.

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[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 30 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (6 children)

Let's say the error rate is 0.1%. Pretty low, right. But that's one mistake per thousand flights. Are they really okay with one plane out of a thousand potentially crashing? There are certain industries and jobs where AI simply cannot and should not be used.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 14 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

Maybe this will finally bring back a solid rail and bus transit infrastructure again.

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