Tesla Autopilot, Boeing 737 Max, and the US Supreme Court decision on the TCPA make an odd group. But, they all rest on the increasingly fluid boundary between automation and human intervention.
Tesla’s cars are dominating the popular narrative around automating the mundane commute. The Boeing 737 Max is a recent reminder of what can happen when all that is automated is not fully understood. And finally, the issue of automation is so hairy that even the US Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, singularly stayed away from the subject.
I’m researching how checklists can resolve that silent killer of workplace culture–apathy. Think of it as version 2.0 of an earlier post on the matter. Still based on my experiences, it is a deeper exposition into the roots of workplace apathy.
Aviation is a shining example of checklists done well. I don’t know how this book got into my queue (maybe I should keep track of that), but I just finished reading No Man’s Land: The Untold Story of Automation on QF72 by the plane’s captain, former US Air Force Top Gun pilot Kevin Sullivan.
It’s a gripping tale of a routine flight gone wrong interlaced with personal stories on his time as a combat pilot with two Carrier deployments.
While eerily similar to the doomed Air France 447 flight(more on that later), the book shows how superior airmanship and team communication created a completely different result. At one point, all the three pilots are fully engaged, trying to aviate, navigate, and communicate. All the while they’re keeping an eye on each other, executing challenge-response checklists, making sure the flying pilot (Sullivan) had everything he needed to reroute and land safely.
It proves yet again that a simple, well-designed checklist is the panacea to any complicated issue.
I expected a gripping play-by-play of the flight. What I didn’t expect was a candid discussion on PTSD.
The view of the Indian Ocean filling his entire windscreen while fighting the plane’s automation was a memory that Sullivan couldn’t shake off. There is a hypocrisy of vulnerability around the expression of male mental health. Sullivan exposes it by sharing his battle with PTSD. He continued to fly for eight years after the incident before requesting a medical retirement.
The Air France Flight 447 crash Sullivan claims would not have happened if the crew had ignored the altitude warnings and just continued to fly manually. Popular Mechanics transcribed the tragic final 5 minutes of the flight a few years back and seems to back that claim.
Sullivan argues that designers of automation systems should create crumple zones that allow humans enough time to think and intervene when automation goes haywire. This assumes that such systems are designed with automation as a partner instead of a master. These days that is a big assumption to make.
Thomas Friedman says there is a greater need for human empathy, intuition, and judgment in this new age. As the world gets more complex and automation creates even grander illusions of simplicity, we all have the responsibility to build those competencies.