
Pilotless Emergency Services Helicopters Coming to Silicon Valley - rmason
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/technology/autonomous-flying-emergency-silicon-valley.html
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kjeetgill
> Silicon Valley Takes a (Careful) Step Toward Autonomous Flying

> A new flying ambulance service will use small helicopters outfitted with
> tech that could eventually let them fly without pilots.

The actual title and subtitle. They have pilots right now.

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oliveshell
I love this sort of thing in theory, but I would never trust my life to an
electronic helicopter pilot.

I believe the tech can be made to be safe and reliable during normal flight.
However, all the edge cases here are potentially fatal.

How well can we train a computer to choose a safe emergency landing spot and
auto-rotate down if the engine fails? How will it cope with
avionics/electrical failures? Or a geomagnetic storm?

How well will the system be hardened against malicious attacks? How well can
we endow it with the judgment to avoid icing at low temperatures?

The answer to most of these questions might well be “pretty darn well,
actually;” however, emergencies happen, and in those situations, I— and, I
suspect, many others— will only ever feel safe with an experienced, context-
aware, human pilot at the controls.

(Unless we somehow crack general AI...)

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tlb
Would a sufficiently good track record convince you? Say, a million flights
with 80% lower accident rates than human pilots?

A strict utilitarian should only care about accident rates. But as Greene [0]
and others show, most people don't make moral judgements in a strictly
utilitarian way. Thus, we judge homicide as worse than choosing not to save
someone from death, even though in both cases someone dies as a result of a
decision.

One of the lessons from probing moral calculus is that nobody can really
articulate reasons for their actual moral decisions. People can articulate
utilitarianism, but not what people actually do.

But, if you can articulate why you might prefer a human pilot over an
autopilot, even given sufficient statistics that the autopilot is safer, it'd
be interesting to hear.

[0] [http://www.joshua-greene.net/](http://www.joshua-greene.net/)

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benmowa
what about the one-in-a-million events that pilots continuously train for? Is
one million flights a large enough sample?

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tlb
The current helicopter accident rate for emergency medical service is 3.9 /
100,000 flight hours [0], so a million flights is probably large enough. But
feel free to answer the question based on some larger number that would
convince you it's statistically safer.

[0]
[https://www.aea.net/events/rotorcraft/files/US_Rotorcraft_Ac...](https://www.aea.net/events/rotorcraft/files/US_Rotorcraft_Accident_Data_And_Statistics.pdf)

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Bucephalus355
The military has said this is going to be a big thing.

I can’t remember which general it was, but during testimony in front the Armed
Service Commission in Congress either this year or late 2017, he made the
remark that around 60% of casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan were
essentially “logistics casualties” where people were injured or killed
transporting something.

This technology will obviously reduce those kinds of casualties significantly.

On the other hand, warfare used to be limited by the size of somewhat small
armies. Then came mass conscription, where the whole nation was drafted. Then
came “total war” where 16-65 year old men and women were fighting, but even
then not everyone could fight due to someone having to support the frontline
troops.

Perhaps this all ushers in another step of a more bloody, more people fighting
each other, stage of war where everyone can be on on the “front lines”. The
advent of cyber conflict, which extends the lines of warfare beyond what even
strategic bombing could do, suggests this.

EDIT: Also worth noting that in air war, the bottleneck has usually not been
plane production so much as it’s replacing the pilots. Air campaigns were
limited by the amount of skilled pilots you were willing to lose. This also
might turn that logic upside down as well.

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pkaye
Its amazing that we can automate helicopters but can't do the same for BART.

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jakelarkin
an autonomous helicopter startup doesn't have unions with collective
bargaining agreements (contractually obligating them to have at least 1 human
operator).

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tedsuo
Contracts aside there’s a real issue: the human is there primarily to deal
with other humans and all the random issues that pop up (which, as a regular
bart rider, I assure you are plentiful).

You could shift the model around and maybe have a “station attendant” rather
than a “driver,” but it’s an issue that I don’t see addressed in many
autonomous conversations. The bus driver doesn’t just drive the bus, they also
regulate and deal with all the bullshit happening on and around the bus.

Automation-in-public has so many issues beyond it’s closed-course equivalent,
where you simply have to drive the vehicle. It will be a much bigger
adjustment than just high quality autopilot.

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dmckeon
Autonomous helicopter (AH) - likely, in time.

Law enforcement & traffic reporting with AH, a natural early application.

AH taxi services, sure eventually.

AH for LEO or EMS _response_ to accident scenes or other helo-accessible
locations, sure.

But AH to transport emergent patients to definitive care sounds like a
marketing, regulatory, and training nightmare. Fifty sets of state laws,
thousands of hospital/EMS medical directors to work with, and tens of
thousands of local EMS workers to train seems like a long hill to climb.
Granted, we have had decades of helicopter usage in EMS, so a path is known.

My guesses are that the “air ambulance” image is being used to attract
eyeballs and investors, that early use cases will be for law enforcement, with
a pivot to expensive taxi/commuting usage.

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benmowa
i cant wait to see the testing videos here. think Boston Dynamics kicking
their machine and pushing them downstairs. There better be billions of dollars
in destroyed airframes ahead of any human cargo.

Tail gearbox failure
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11TD0Dboixo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11TD0Dboixo)

ground resonance
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeXjhUEXlc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeXjhUEXlc)

lightening strike
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uybTDikWzWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uybTDikWzWs)

~~~
jsweojtj
*lightning

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dchichkov
I would suggest building a tiny little system that is actually safety
certified as per DAL DO-178B and can run on an aviation grade platform.

This suggestion applies to all "autonomous vehicle" startups. Build a small
component that follows safety standards and is portable to major safety-
certified platforms - this will be useful.

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Animats
Gradually the gap between big drones and small helicopters closes.

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ReGenGen
Is the BIG expense w/ heli services the pilot... -or- is it the helicopter +
maintenance + fuel + support organization?

This seems to be solving the wrong problem...

