The other day I had lunch with two friends, who happen to both be pilots. The topic: When will pilots become obsolete?
Thanks to technology, pilot’s days are numbered. Airplanes basically fly themselves 98% of the time now, and the pilot’s input only accounts for the remaining 2%. It seems the airplane has a short distance to go, before sending pilots the way of the do-do bird. Amazon has already taken steps towards this pilotless-future, with their delivery drones. The US military uses drones extensively (especially recently), instead of expensing valuable human life in war.
The technology already exists for pilotless passenger aircraft, but scientists do not believe that the general population would feel comfortable flying in an airplane that was controlled 100% by a drone. (I, for one, would NOT!) However, they feel that in two generations, the population will actually prefer to have faulty, texting, accident-prone humans, far away from the flying of their planes. They believe that humans are going to view humankind as the problem, rather than the solution.
One of my pilot friends, leaned into my horrified expression. “Don’t worry about the future of airplanes, too much. Technology is searching for a way to make airplanes extinct. Soon, travel will have nothing to do with flying. Airplanes will be considered in the future, the way we consider horse and buggies, today.”
“Are you talking about The Jetsons? Where you just beam yourself to another place?” I asked, horrified.
My friend shrugged. “Maybe.”
On the same day of this Jetson’s conversation, I happened to read an article about a woman who is training to live on Mars. She is going to be one of the first humans to settle on the Red Planet….essentially….she is going to be a future Marsian. She’s not alone either. Twenty-Forty humans are going to be part of the Mars One project. Their task will be to make the planet Mars inhabitable to humankind….just in case we need to leave Earth (the richest 2% of we, anyway) at some point. (I know you’re thinking asteroid! but I prefer to think, all the animals on Earth, banded together and decided to attack humankind, for all the undue torture and destruction we’ve raged upon them, all these centuries.)
And today, I read an article about a wearable drone that some techies are cooking up in a lab in California, that will look like a bracelet, but actually fly off your hand and take a perfect selfie of it’s wearer, without the awkward hand that has become synonymous with the word ‘selfie’.
I hate to bring this up, but, am I the only one who is terrified about the future? It seems like we are right on track with every techie, machines-enslave-people, Blockbuster movie plot line, ever written. I have actually considered selling my house, and fleeing to an off-the-grid farm, where I’ll learn how to grow my own food, and turn my urine into viable drinking water. This is seeming more and more like the thing to do, before they start demanding every person get a chip implanted in their left thumb.
(Thankfully, my husband reminded me that when I first moved to Kingston from Manhattan, I held the experience akin to ‘camping’. I wouldn’t last five days, drinking my urine out in St. Thomas!).
But, come on. Aren’t you scared? Does a part of you, twiddle your thumbs, and shake your head, while sighing absent-mindedly, and mumbling about ‘humans are too darn smart for their own good’? I can’t be alone in this terror. One day your grandchild will look at you in horror, as you tell the tale of the human pilot who used to greet you warmly as you stepped onto an aircraft, and spent the better half of a day getting to Europe.
“But Grandma,” your grandchild will say, “how did you sit still THAT LONG?” Kind of like how I freak out when my grandfather tells me about his mother forcing him to take a boat to Florida, then take a train to New York, to get on another boat bound for England. A trip that literally spanned two weeks. All because she mistrusted airplanes!
I am not ready for the future. I still cannot figure out how to put music on my IPod. The future will eat me alive.
BEFORE YOU GO, BUY SOME OF MY BOOKS! THE NEW YORK CATCH, NEW YORK SOCIALITE, NEW NEW YORK, (OR THE NEW YORK SERIES, 3-IN-1), THE RED ROCK CAFE, MIDLIFE WIFE & DATING FOR DINNER.
La Dolce Vita 