Preferences

This is true for so many things - even driverless taxis, drone deliveries, even office jobs / AI.

The narrative is that human labor is expensive super expensive, there are "skills shortages", etc etc... but in actuality, hiring a few people rounds down to 0 in the context of an airliner or an office building in Manhattan, and you get a lot of political sway for employing folks and paying payroll taxes, and the "doorman fallacy" is very real. The "robots taking our jobs" narrative seems hugely exaggerated to me.


Yes, I agree, I don't see cargo plane pilots being replaced here. Or indeed commercial pilots in general.

Pilots are an unusual species because most of their utility and training is in the ability to deal with (very) edge cases. Indeed it is their ability to deal with unanticipated edge cases which is their most valuable attribute.

Sure, most pilots won't need those skills during their careers, but the value when they do us immeasurable. Landing on the Hudson anyone?

Equally it is the situational awareness and anticipation of problems which avoid things that could have escalated into disaster but instead become near misses.

Sure 99.99% of their work is routine and could be done hy a machine. But that last 0.01% is thousands of lives, and billions in equipment and cargo.

This item has no comments currently.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Story Lists

j
Next story
k
Previous story
Shift+j
Last story
Shift+k
First story
o Enter
Go to story URL
c
Go to comments
u
Go to author

Navigation

Shift+t
Go to top stories
Shift+n
Go to new stories
Shift+b
Go to best stories
Shift+a
Go to Ask HN
Shift+s
Go to Show HN

Miscellaneous

?
Show this modal