My pet theory… Some tiny but critical process holding up the Air Traffic Control network depended on data shared periodically between systems using a python script that emails the info using Outlook. It took 24 hours for the Outlook outage to catch up with the ATC data sync routine.
Icing in on the cake: They fired the guy who maintained the script in June as part of an AI cost savings initiative.
It will all be fine when ATC becomes ai
That’s a fucking great use case for machine learning. Do you know the burnout rate of atc controllers? Just watch the documentary “Pushing Tin”
In the way it is being used, it actually really is. But all the articles are presenting as if the pilots are going to be talking with a chatbot. My reply was tongue in cheek going with that.
I’m so tired of the excessive anti-AI hate, because I generally dislike AI but you have to jump on the bandwagon and hate everything NO MATTER WHAT or you get downvoted to fucking hell. I dislike AI, but I REALLY fucking hate the fucking moronic hivemind on this topic even worse.
So it’s worth noting that the system in question DOES NOT CONTROL LIVE AIRCRAFT, but assists with planning. Humans approve the suggestions it gives for FUTURE ROUTE PLANNING, NOT REALTIME TRAFFIC.
So go ahead and hate on it, no worries, I don’t care, but all this fucking misinformation about planes falling from the sky needs to stop. The idiots spouting that sound as stupid as Trump and his stupid word salad. Like remember the people seeking asylum, and because Trump only knows about “insane asylums”, it somehow turns into him thinking it’s crazy people trying to invade? Yeah, that’s what the “AI CAUSING PLANES TO CRASH” spouting people sound like.
Be angry. Fight against the harm excessive datacenters can cause. But be RIGHT and don’t be fucking STUPID.
Hey bud, the comment you are responding to doesn’t say that AI is controlling live air traffic or causing planes to crash. Maybe you meant to respond to a different comment or thread, but you seem awfully worked up over what, in the context of your comment, is a straw man argument. We all had a day off from email thanks to Microslop, and it’s at least a funny coincidence that there’s a massive nationwide groundstop that seems to coincide with either Outlook being down and/or the FAA rolling out an “AI” tool. Let’s all lower our blood pressure and have a chuckle at the situation, yeah?
K
The day after the FAA started rolling out its AI tools, what a surprise.
I guess the LLM found the most common way to prevent airplane accidents is to not fly.
”The use of artificial intelligence within SMART has rightfully raised serious questions about its reliability and safety benefits, particularly on its potential to interfere with decision-making by experienced air traffic controllers or to hallucinate safety-critical information.”
Excellent use case for AI. An industry where a single mistake can lead to a fiery crash and hundreds of deaths.
yeah the broadcast news is saying its not supposed to do that but isn’t ai not supposed to randomly hack another site and such. haven’t we been innudated with ai going outside its parameters articles?
Big Clarke & Dawe vibes
Hopefully this will help finish popping the bubble
Coincidence. It’s actually because they finally stopped using floppies, but without realising how important they are to aviation safety.
The article is from yesterday, but is that when the rollout actually happened?
From arstechnica:
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the $875 million SMART system has helped reroute 180 flights since being implemented in airspace over Washington, DC, on September 21.
It sounds like this story is saying they are increasing its usage now.
Lmao I am having the WORST (forced, extended family) vacation. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. And this is the cherry on top. My return flight was gonna be tomorrow lol. At least I have an excuse for my boss. Pray for me, everyone.
Always best to be prepared, couldn’t hurt to check and see what other forms of transportation you may be able to take home. I missed a flight once, renting a car got me home faster than waiting for the next plane
I was stuck in Tortola during hurricane Lenny in 1999. When I got back 4 days late, I found out that I had been part of a mass layoff.
Happens to me in 2002, I finally got a flight scheduled and a coworker called me to say, “don’t bother rushing back, we’ve all been laid off”.
They will probably have it sorted by then, hang in there.
Thanks for the positive energy :)
HOLY FUCK. That’s nearly unprecedented. What the fuck is going on.
They rolled AI tools out nationwide at the FAA just yesterday. Go figure.
A… I… wanna ask you a question.
They have been using them since September 21.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the $875 million SMART system has helped reroute 180 flights since being implemented in airspace over Washington, DC, on September 21.
Guessing it did not scale well.
Microsoft’s big outage is beginning to affect more and more systems.
Turns out that even things which don’t seem to depend on Microsoft can actually only last for a limited time if it goes away
Or it could be the recently announced phaseout of their floppy disks and they’ve announced they’ll be using “more AI” (whatever that means). It could be either of those too
I was watching a doomer AI video about how it would hold us hostage by infiltrating all our medical transportation and energy infrastructure.
It’s not a superpowerful AI. It’s just Microsoft business as usual
Actually, it happened just 3 years ago.
Actually less scary than if, say, Obama was president. (or even a Bush really)¹
Cuz a trump admin having a major shutdown could just mean his admin hired a Christian straight white cis male “DEI Hire” that was incompetent and flipped off a switch and shut the whole thing down.
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¹Cuz if it was a “status quo president”, you know shit hit the fan (i.e. war or some shit), not just an innocent mistake
They announced yesterday that they were rolling out a new AI ATC tool nationwide.
It went super well. No complaints. I’m definitely going to miss my upcoming flight, but this is definitely the best thing to happen to aviation in the history of aviation.
Their all-knowing AI probably couldn’t solve some minor issue (because a lot of tech there predates their mass scraped ‘knowledge’) and made it worse, but they also can’t beg their fired employees to return by mail because MS fucked up their service (who wants to take a guess how THAT happenend? 😜)
It’s what happens when you put nut jobs and idiots in positions of power and control over a country
This reminds me of when our entire management team got stuck in France because of a volcano with a name you can’t pronounce.
“You’re right to be mad at me, I shouldn’t have directed the two Boeing supermaxes to fly into eachother, my mistake!” -FAA AI
On Friday the thirteenth
I read that with a lisp
of course my prefered local news is showing judy justice but abc is live with it. sounds like the automated air traffic control systems are having problems.
Somebody pulled another duffy
I wonder if any countries use Linux on their ATC systems?
I would be impressed when a lot of those systems don’t predate Linux…
Israel wanted to use TempleOS but the creator wasn’t racist enough for them.
They’ll probably go with Omarchy.
The one from DHH?
Bet money Norway & Holland do.
