Welcome Aboard, This Is Your Auto-Pilot Speaking

What will an automated future world look like? An airline pilot wonders.

No passenger flights yet are fully automated, but it is only a matter of time. (Photo: iStock)

Welcome aboard Con-West flight 101 from Mumbai to New York. This is a fully automatic flight with no pilots. This is your autopilot speaking, and I assure you nothing can go wrong... go wrong... go wrong...

This was a joke we used to crack as young co-pilots flying dated Boeing 737-200s. Now these planes had really no automation to speak of. Then the next generation of jets came which had better automation and then the next and the next. Now you have 737-size drones flying in the sky. Of course, no passenger flights yet are fully automated; however, it is only a matter of time. I would say the technology is already here. Only the risk mitigation factors have to be worked out before it is installed on planes. Sure, there will be many regulatory hurdles to cross. These can and will be surmounted.

Years before or actually just before I started flying, the navigators, the radio officer and then the flight engineer were replaced by technology without many problems.

Surely some problems were encountered but they were quickly overcome.

This is not to argue about how safe it is to have airplanes flying without a Captain. This is to tell how risky it is to think of automation replacing all humans.

Google already has self-driving cars roaming around with much success in California. Tesla cars are just a software away from being driverless. Self-driving Uber cabs are at the concept stage. Amazon is working on drone delivery vehicles. Someone in India already tried this, though with a little brush with the law.

Google’s self-driving car. (Photo: iStock)

A friend has started a restaurant in Singapore – or is in process of developing one – which will have drones delivering your food. So will other businesses follow suit? Yes, why not? It saves the hassle of hiring and paying – oh god the benefits are endless – to eliminate the human angle.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? If we allow technology to take over and wait until it’s too late, well, that is the history of this planet. We will have automation in most places and people will be without jobs. Don’t think it will not happen to you. It will happen to you. What profession are you in? Did you say you are a doctor? Well, even then you are not safe. Robotic surgery is here. It can be tuned. It will be tuned. The next person to be replaced by technology is a teacher. It’s very easy. It is already being done. You name it, and that profession or business will be affected.

Robotics departments will replace HR departments. So basically you have replaced the pilot, the driver, the delivery boy, the doctor, the engineer, the teacher, the HR staff – yes, maybe the engineer will be required for some time yet, and then even he will be replaced.

If we allow technology to take over and wait until it’s too late, well, that is the history of this planet. (Photo: iStock)

You will have automated planes with no passengers as no one has to go anywhere for work, and you will have automated cars and no one in them as no one has to work. I mean I can go on and on. Just let’s stop and think about where we want to be in the next few decades. Don’t be happy to tell me that I will be replaced by an autopilot. It will be you next, buddy.

And yes, a machine will write this article next time.

(Rajesh Narang, age 45 years, has been flying for 25 years. He is the Captain and Instructor on Airbus A330 airplanes.)