[fendy3002]

But you still don't have autonomous flying, even though the case is much simpler than driving: take off, ascend, cruise, land.

It isn't easy to fix autonomous driving not because the problem isn't identified. Sometimes two conflicting scenario can happen on the road that no matter how good the autonomous system is, it won't be enough

Though I agree that having different kind of human instead will not make it any safer

[inetknght]

> But you still don't have autonomous flying, even though the case is much simpler than driving: take off, ascend, cruise, land.

Flying is actually a lot more complicated than just driving. When you're driving you can "just come to a stop". When you're flying... you can't. And a hell of a lot can go wrong.

In any case, we do have autonomous flying. They're called drones. There are even prototypes that ferry humans around.

[Dylan16807]

Being unable to abort a flight with a moment's notice does add complication, but not so much that flying is "a lot more complicated" than driving. The baseline for cars is very hard. And cars also face significant trouble when stopping. A hell of a lot can go wrong with either.

[JumpCrisscross]

> When you're driving you can "just come to a stop". When you're flying... you can't

Would note that this is the same issue that made autonomous freeway driving so difficult.

When we solve one, we'll solve the other. And it increasingly looks like they'll both be solved in the next half decade.

[fendy3002]

a bit unclear from my statement before but that's the point. Something that feels easy is actually much more complicated than that. Like weather, runway condition, plane condition, wind speed / direction, ongoing incidents at airport, etc. Managing all that scenario is not easy.

the similar things also applied in driving, especially with obstacles and emergency, like floods, sinkhole in Bangkok recently, etc.

[Spooky23]

Flying is the “easy” part. There’s a lot more wood behind the arrow for a safe flight. The pilot is (an important) part of an integrated system. The aviation industry looks at everything from the pilot to the supplier of lightbulbs.

With a car, deferred or shoddy maintenance is highly probable and low impact. With an aircraft, if a mechanic torques a bolt wrong, 400 people are dead.

[Nextgrid]

At least one reason for intentionally not having fully autonomous flying is that you want the human pilots to keep their skills sharp (so they are available in case of an emergency).