Wow: Captain Sullenberger On Autonomous Systems

From FT Alphaville:

The Drive has an exclusive interview with Captain Chelsey Sullenberger (aka Captain Sully of Hudson miracle fame) on the topic of autonomous cars and safety.

Whether you’re an investor, a techie or simply a car enthusiast, it’s worth your time.

As the interview explains, aviation is way ahead of the auto sector with regards to automating human operator processes. And as might be expected, it’s not all been smooth sailing. Pilots as a consequence have an important perspective to share on the issue of automating ground vehicles.

We won’t riff too much of the original interview, as you should head over to The Drive to read it directly.

But three key take-aways we walked away with were:

• Sully is sceptical about any autonomous system which isn’t 100 per cent perfect because any hybrid system which still depends on humans in standby mode is likely to suffer from a degradation of human skills. It’s also more arduous for humans in the long run.”The greater concern in aviation-based studies I’ve seen is that not only are manual flying skills degraded—which decreases confidence and the timeliness of the intervention—the greater concern is actually the lack of constant mental engagement with the operating process, which means that analytical skills are also degraded.”...

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