Morlock Elloi on Thu, 14 Mar 2019 17:47:10 +0100 (CET)


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<nettime> rage against the machine


Handling of the recent B737 Max 8 disaster is somewhat revealing.

What seems to have happened (for the 2nd time) is that computing machine fought the pilot, and the machine won.

It looks like some cretin in Boeing that drank too much of AI Kool Aid (probably a middle manager) decided to install trained logic circuit that was supposed to make new aircraft behave (to pilots) like the older one. As its operation was far too complicated (ie. even Boeing didn't quite understand it) they decided not to inform pilots about it, as it could disturb the poor things with too much information.

One part of the unknown operation appears to be the insistence of ML black box on crashing the airplane during ascent. As it had full control of the trim surfaces there was nothing pilots could do (I guess using fire axe to kill the circuit would work, if pilots knew where the damn thing was.)

That's what the best available info right now is on what was the cause.

What is interesting is how this was handled, particularly in the US:

- There were documented complaints about this circuit for long time;
- FAA ignored them;
- After the second disaster most of the world grounded this type of aircraft;
- FAA said there is nothing wrong with it;
- It seems that intervention from White House made FAA see the light and ground the planes.

Why? What was so special about this bug? FAA previously had no problem grounding planes on less evidence and fewer complaints.

It may have to do with the first critical application of the new deity in commercial jets. The deity is called "AI", and its main function is to deflect the rage against rulers towards machines (it's the 2nd generation of the concept, the first one was simply "computer says ...".)

FAA's hesitation may make sense. After several hundred people have been killed, someone will dig into the deity, and eventually the manager idiot and its minions will be declared (not publicly, of course) the guilty party. This could be a fatal blow to the main purpose of the deity.


(BTW, 'rage' is also a verb)




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