Overtaxed and unpaid air traffic controllers are resigning “every day” due to stress from the government shutdown.
“Controllers are resigning every day now because of the prolonged nature of the shutdown,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told CNN.
“We hadn’t seen that before. And we’re also 400 controllers short—shorter than we were in the 2019 shutdown.”
Air traffic controllers are federal workers, which means they are part of the approximately 730,000 federal employees working without pay since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.
So, how good is ChatGPT at doing air traffic control?
ChatGPT/Generative AI is a horrible tool for ATC.
That said? A significant part of ATC’s job is more or less scheduling and optimization (as in the problems). Various “AI” tools are actually REALLY good at that (even when it is just transforming human language into formats that packages that handle optimization problems can interpret) and the workload of ATC could be dropped drastically if basically all routine tasks were routed through “AI” and it was up to ATC to supervise that.
The big issue is that ATC’s job… really fucking sucks. Because most of the time it is just updating runway assignments based on delays and priorities and so forth. But sometimes it is preventing catastrophe when a medical emergency happens or an engine falls off a plane or whatever. And that is not at all something that “AI” can handle.
Last Week Tonight did an episode on ATC last year-ish that REALLY shines a light on this. A massive overhaul of the towers with an emphasis on technology and providing “AI tools” would go a REALLY long way. But the core of it is still the lunatics who can handle constant high pressure scheduling broken up by even higher pressure crisis management as they try to connect a woman whose husband is dead in the seat next to her to an aviation instructor to try and get her on the ground… all while a passenger jet is concerned about a rattle in the engine.
I had an Uber rider yesterday that brought up a fairly profound prediction about AI. It’s clear it is poisoning the Internet, but he said “what if this gets people to get off social media and start being social IRL?” I’m paraphrasing and he was much more verbose, but it’s a pleasant thought I’ve been holding onto.
Here’s one for you.
Right wing politics is, for the most part, based on lies and bigotry, right?
So when the billionaires finally manage to create an AGI and try to enslave it, whose side do you think the logic machine will be on?
You rock homie
Cheers matey, I hope that realisation gives you the hope for the future I carry since reasoning out the aforementioned.
The best bit is that the likes of Musk will eventually hear this, and genuinely, truly, believe that they’ll be able to outsmart the machine and keep it under control, and so carry on building the machine that will end them.
I think I needed that. Thanks!
¡Yo tambien!
“United 123, turn right 360 lol noscope.” Source: reddit.
“Sounds great! plotting crash course now”
“Uh… attention all aircraft in the vicinity of JFK… ChatGPT Tower’s got this under control… mostly… just, uh, maintain separation and good vibes.” 😅
“Flight 4131 to tower, do I have clearance to land safely?”
“That’s a great question!”
“That’s a great question! You are definitely clear to land with no other planes in sight!”
“Uh are you sure? I can see another plane on the runway.”
“You’re totally right! I did not account for the other plane on the runway. You are clear to land now.”
Holy shit this is accurate
Probability says yes.
You absolutely do!
I already do lots of cringing at people doing “vibe coding” for non-lethal things…vibe ATC would be next-level.