How the FAA wants to use artificial intelligence

The FAA is dipping a toe into AI with a project called SMART — because nothing says 'we've learned from decades of near-misses and systemic failures' like a backronym that sounds like a corporate team-building exercise. Three vendors are on board, though the agency hastens to add that humans will still make 'safety-critical decisions.' Which is reassuring until you remember that humans currently manage the world's busiest airspace with 1970s radar, paper strips, and the occasional controller falling asleep on the overnight shift.

But don't worry: the AI will merely 'assist.' So it's essentially a glorified spell-check for air traffic control — catching the odd typo in a flight plan while the real work stays with the understaffed, overworked humans who, the last time we checked, were retiring in droves. The FAA's approach is a masterclass in hedging: deploy just enough AI to look modern, but keep the liability firmly on the human side of the ledger. If the tech fails, no problem — 'human error.' If the human fails, no problem — 'stress and fatigue.' The system absorbs none of the risk.

The real joke is that by the time SMART is actually useful enough to reduce controller workload, we'll have already run out of controllers. But at least the three vendors — likely Lockheed, Raytheon, and some plucky startup — will have pocketed a few billion in development fees. SMART indeed: a small step for AI, a giant leap for the consulting class.