One jet landing every minute, coordinating the airspace for miles around the airport, along with coordinating non-landing traffic (helicopters, small craft), while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred people sounds easy to you, along with keeping everything on time and schedule?
You say it “…sounds like a simple problem,” and sure, if you think this is a computer problem, it sounds simple. But if all you’re getting back is indignant sputtering, that’s your cue to explain why it’s simple—explaining something simple shouldn't be hard. What do you actually know?
It takes all of two minutes of Wikipedia reading for me to understand why this isn’t simple; why it's actually extremely not simple! If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?
If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple".
Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons. If they are so important, it leads to a question: what existing automated systems can we improve by adding similar constraints?
If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.
I would like to say, "Because knowledgeable people have explained the difference to me." But again, this has come up before, and no explanations are ever provided. Only vague, reactionary hand-waving, assuring me that humans -- presumably not the same ones who just directed a fire truck and an aircraft onto the same active runway, but humans nevertheless -- are vital for safety in ATC, because for reasons such as and therefore.
There you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.
There is no substance in the replies. There never is. Only unanchored FUD.
Ok. You have shared that what some say are reasons, you say are excuses. Do you want to be told you are right, or do you want to propose a valid solution? If the latter requires the former, I maintain that this is not a simple problem.
I just want what I've been asking for: someone to explain to me why, in 2026, humans still need to be involved in the real-time aspects of ATC.
"Because it's always been done that way, and that's what the regulations say," will not be accepted, at least not by me.
(Really, my question is more like why humans will still be needed in the loop in 2036. If we started automating ATC today, that's probably how long it would take to cut over to the new system.)
If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?
You retorted.
Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons.
I rebutted.
Ok. You have shared that what some say are reasons, you say are excuses... I maintain that this is not a simple problem.
Which you ignored to make a new claim against a straw man.
I just want what I've been asking for: someone to explain to me why, in 2026, humans still need to be involved in the real-time aspects of ATC.
That is what is not acceptable. You cannot simply abandon your original claim because it has been plainly pointed out that it is incorrect. You were not simply asking for someone to explain why humans need to be involved in real-time aspects of ATC. That is a wholly different question! You claimed this problem was simple, and it has been explained to you why it is not. Please reason about your argument more soundly.
On the heels of tragedy, you reasoned this could've been avoided simply. We are all ears. And yet, at no point did you demonstrate any understanding of the problem containing real world constraints, and instead demand that it be explained to you how the world works and how systems are implemented.
If you want to discuss an idealized system in a vacuum, then say as much; I would find that interesting. But do not demand to be given an explanation when you do not understand—and cannot accept—why things are the way they are.
Let me summarize it like this: you may very well have the best solution in the world, but if it doesn't include a strategy for how to share it (let alone implement it), then I maintain you do not understand the problem and therefore cannot claim it is simple.
Let me summarize it like this: you may very well have the best solution in the world
I have no solution at all, for the 35th time.
This conversation is over; it's clear I'm not going to get what I asked for. If someone could answer my question, they would have by now, rather than throwing one smoke bomb after another.
Er, I sort of do think that's how it works? The ultimate rebuttal to "you can't do X" is to actually do X. Until you do that I think that ultimately the burden of proof falls on you. It can be very easy to imagine certain tasks and systems can be automated - especially when you aren't actively involved in those tasks and systems and are unfamiliar with their intricacies.
...insert specific example of currently intractable problem...
What makes the problem intractable? We can now do both voice recognition and synthesis at human levels, and any video game programmer from the 1980s can keep some objects from running into each other.
When an emergency is declared, keep the other objects in a holding pattern and give the affected object permission to land. Then roll the fire trucks. Preferably not routing both the trucks and another aircraft onto the same runway, as the humans apparently did here.
It’s not weird that you believe automated ATC is possible. The weird thing is that you insist it’s simple.
People’s lives hang in the balance of a system built of corner cases. And you trot out radiation treatment as your metaphor? As if we didn’t royally fuck that up and kill a bunch of people at first.
The 'simple' remark was in response to your wide-eyed implication that 1000 takeoffs and landings per day is somehow a challenge for modern computing systems.
You'll lose this argument sooner or later. I just hope it happens before several hundred people find out the hard way that humans no longer have any business in a control tower. With your attitude, Therac-25 would have been seen as grounds to shut down the entire field of radiotherapy.
Your “simple” springs from your assumption that the problem is easy and anyone who disagrees is dumb. This is also why you can’t hear any of the answers others have given you. You don’t want answers. You want to be “right”.
No one thinks that the difficulty with automatic ATC is that computers have trouble counting 1000 things.
One approach that has always served me well in life is when someone appears to say something that seems obviously not true (like that computers can't count to 1000), consider whether I actually have misunderstood them.
> What makes the problem intractable? We can now do both voice recognition and synthesis at human levels, and any video game programmer from the 1980s can keep some objects from running into each other.
Great point!
It must be that despite the reliability, obvious advantages, and accessibility to "any video game programmer from the 1980s", everyone else is just choosing not to do it.
Alternatively, these things are not as simple or as reliable as you, a person who has no familiarity with the problem, assumes them to be.
The only difference between an excuse and a reason is the designator's belief as to the validity of the reason provided. You have already said you do not have the expertise required to assess validity, yet here you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.
If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.
while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred people
Confusion is indeed a common side effect of a job done halfway.
Replying:
I'm really confused at the point you're trying to make - you declared yourself not an expert in this field, while loudly declaring it's so easy to automate.
Because we've already done harder things. 1000 takeoffs and landings per day equals a trillion machine cycles between events... on the phone in your pocket. It is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof, to say that this task isn't suitable for automation.
Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?
I'm not qualified to do it, I didn't say I was, and in any event, I don't work for free. I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible. Spoiler: there are no reasons, only excuses.
The concrete reason your ideas won’t work is you don’t have any.
It's not my job to explain how to do it, it's your job to explain why it can't or shouldn't be done. The extraordinary claim is yours, not mine.
Remember how we installed traffic lights all over the roads and now car crashes never happen any more at intersections? Truly automation solves all problems.
Hard to respond to an argument of this quality, at least without getting flagged or worse.
I'm really confused at the point you're trying to make - you declared yourself not an expert in this field, while loudly declaring it's so easy to automate. Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?
I know this was rhetorical but the obvious answer is a complete lack of any actual ideas. “Just automate it” is a common refrain from people who don’t know how to fix the actual issues with any domain.
Remember how we installed traffic lights all over the roads and now car crashes never happen any more at intersections? Truly automation solves all problems.
> I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible. Spoiler: there are no reasons, only excuses.
It sounds like you're not asking anything at all
Just to play it out a bit, are you imagining that a pilot would be reporting a mechanical failure upon descent into busy airspace to some type of like AI voice agent, who will then orchestrate other aircraft out of the way (and not into each other) while also coaching the crippled aircraft out of the sky?
Are you imagining some vast simplification that obviates the need for such capability? Because that doesn't seem simple at all to me.
To repeatedly declare something simple to fix, but then have no idea how to fix it, and indeed to declare oneself unqualified to fix it, is kind of an astounding level of hubris.
> I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible.
The concrete reason your ideas won’t work is you don’t have any.
Go write it then.