Let me tell you anything to do with the FAA is met with the longest approval and review process.
Just the phase where they establish the requirements for a contract to replace their system with an updated version takes so long that by the end of it the system outlined to be built is already obselete. They have such stupid requirements that litterally say the printers and graphics cards are special ordered from certain manufacturers that only make those parts for them.
This is the “new system” they’re replacing their ancient system with:
Look at the significant project milestones. Began in 2008, still deploying shit in 2025
The ancient system being replaced is uret:
https://automation.forthillgroup.com/story/URET
which may or may not have been run on OG mainframes written in fortan and takes tape drives that look like 8 tracks.
Actually I believe there was news recently that said the FAA finally did away with floppy disks. Hooray!
The fact that they vibe coded some AI agent to help out is insane. The fact that it is breaking everything isn’t surprising in the slightest.
FAA rules result in engines designed in WW2 using leaded gas & carbeurators remain state of art.
Can’t get anything newer approved.
Likely couldn’t get WW2 technologies approved without grandfather clauses…and those were never tested since beating the germans was more important at the time.
Who cares where the metal used in a washer was mined?
It’s usually:
- legacy systems won’t work on newer windows versions, so they have to stick to what works
- legacy drivers that won’t work on newer windows versions, so certain hardware can only interface with those older windows
- updating code for more recent machines is expensive and time consuming, especially as you’ll need to keep the old version running for who knows how long until you fully replace it. CERN recently went through a lot of trouble due to Red Hat dropping support for older systems (which they still use) and started migrating to Debian.
Throwing AI around won’t help much unless someone with a working brain trains the thing only on the stuff that the FAA needs for their systems to work
The AI isn’t an LLM. It uses historic data to detect potential issues to alert ATC to. It’s a pretty tried and true technology. Basically no different than a log analyzer.
When lives depend on the software, updates become a serious risk.
The AI idea is to make up for controllers being overworked and understaffed since Regan broke their strike. It’s a bad idea given the previous issue.
Are you sure about this?
An update might introduce a new bug that could kill people? Yes it happens.
It was a joke given the current situation. You’re clearly 100% right.
