Former Air Traffic Controller Terrified New AI System Will Hallucinate and Cause Catastrophe
"One word: hallucination." The post Former Air Traffic Controller Terrified New AI System Will Hallucinate and Cause Catastrophe appeared first on Futurism .
US federal government's plans to introduce an AI system for air traffic control at major airports has raised concerns from a former air traffic controller. Todd Sheridan Yeary, who has 13 years of experience in the field, appeared on News Nation to discuss the risks associated with the new system, called Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories or SMART.
Yeary questioned the purpose of the tool and emphasized that it could either be a predictive or prescriptive stand-in for human decisions. He pointed out that if AI were to be prescriptive, it would pose a different set of questions regarding air traffic control's dynamic nature. Yeary's main concern was the potential for AI to produce inaccurate data, known as hallucination.
He stressed the need for an override mechanism from the duty controller to ensure accuracy. Yeary opposed the soft launch of SMART at the busy DC metro area, stating that the system must be tested in real-life-like scenarios before being relied upon. He highlighted a recent aviation communications failure near Philadelphia that resulted in hundreds of delays across the east coast, raising doubts about the current air traffic control system's capacity to manage an experimental AI system.
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