Evaluating the Impacts of Automation

This article discusses the impacts of automation in the aviation and car industries, with a focus on the Boeing 737 Max. It explores the changes in driving behaviors and skills due to automation, as well as the potential risks and challenges. The case of the Boeing 737 Max is examined to highlight the consequences of inadequate training and malfunctioning automation. The article concludes with the need for progress in human-machine interfaces and driver training for automated vehicles.

Running head: EVALUATING THE IMPACTS OF AUTOMATION
EVALUATING THE IMPACTS OF AUTOMATION
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Research problems
 Does Automation have impacts upon the safety of the aviation?
 Does Automation have impacts upon the safety of the car industries?
 Does the Boeing 737 max depict the impact?
Automation of aviation and car industries
The evolution towards much more automation as well as connectivity is considered to be
one of the largest forces for driving a lot of recent in the automotive industry. In the automobile
history, the evolution of technology has always been followed by an evolution in parallel in
driving interaction in between human and vehicle and also for driving skills. As automobiles
have become much more automated as well as connected, it is very likely that all the drivers are
going to change their behaviours of driving accordingly (Sträter 2016). All the new technologies
which are seen to be utilised in most of the vehicles which are automated will definitely augment
and perform much more tasks which are normally required of the drivers. In the industries which
are automotive, it has been believed greatly that all most of the human drivers will become
totally dependent or rather will become over reliant upon this automation. However, it has also
been noticed that some of the drivers are still wanting several operations of vehicles to be done
manually in some of the occasions (Fagnant and Kockelman 2015). They can also be needed for
doing so, when any kind of event will be faced which will be far beyond the programming which
is present in these kinds of new technologies or in case of any failure in automation. Therefore, it
is very much essential for keeping a knowledge about certain implications of such type of
situations. If suddenly any kind of system does not work or perform properly as anticipated by

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the driver, then there may a creation of a number of dangerous or fatal situations which will not
at all exist in the absence of the feature of automated vehicles.
Due to the AV deployment in a huge scale, it is very likely that the driver’s role is going
to be evolved and due to the advancement in automation, drivers are going to play a very less
role in the manoeuvring of vehicles (Billings 2018). Fro about last ten years, several researches
have already discussed about how the skills of the drivers are gradually changing by the
influence of the new technologies which are making vehicles highly automated. Many
researchers have even agreed on the fact that automation will be linking probably to a huge loss
of skill as well as loss of awareness. Several experiences which have been obtained from
automation in aviation can be really very helpful during the consideration of the driver’s ability
for responding to several failures or rather limitations of the technology of automated vehicles
(Clements and Kockelman 2017. This mostly concerns about several topics like authority
sharing, several consequences of over-relying upon new technologies and also degradation of
skills. Automation has been seen to have a significant impact upon the performance of the pilot
in aviation. The problems which mostly happens are mostly related to skills of flying manually
which is degraded, poor making of decision and possible confidence erosion and these are
mostly seen when automation malfunctions very abruptly or fully disconnects during any kinds
of emergency.
Boeing 737 Max
Such a problem in case of aviation has been clearly observed in the uncreative destruction
of “The Boeing 737 Max”. In the year 2018, a Boeing 737 Max 8 which was seen to be
belonging to Lion Air in Indonesia had crashed into the seal of Java twelve minutes after taking

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off (Gomez et al. 2014). About 189 passengers as well as all the members of crew were instantly
killed due to the sudden crash. It is really very unusual for aeroplanes to suffer from such kinds
of accidents in a weather which is totally clear after reaching the cruising height. Most of the
experts of flight had concluded by saying that all the pilots were not trained properly in the
MCAS or Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which is mainly a technology of
robotics which has the capability of lowering the nose of an aeroplane for preventing a stall
(Napolitano et al. 2013). There is no other judgement which h is definitive upon what has
happened really. It had been observed that it was a combination of both the training of the pilots
which was inadequate and also the MCAS’s malfunctioning. Even another 737 Max 8 which had
been owned by the Ethiopian Airlines had a similar kind of accident which had resulted in a
death of number of passengers.
(Source: Napolitano et al. 2013)
After hearing about such kinds of effects, each and every people may have fear in their
minds and may think twice before boarding upon any plane. The main thing is that the main

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issue is not that the planes are becoming very complex and in fact the main issue is that the
labour of human is being replaced with that of the robots (Petrescu et al. 2017). The replacement
of the labour of human by machinery has led to a creative destruction. It can be easily assumed
that the pain which is temporary is worth it since there will be growing new jobs always.
Creative destruction will be operated once again for fostering a new upswing in the capitalist
cycle of business. But it is to be known that how will that be itself manifested (He et al. 2017). A
number of signs will definitely point out that there are some types of breakthrough related to
technology which is equivalent to the revolution of computer which helped to fuel huge growth
for a number of decades.
As it is known that automation has a great impact upon the performance of the pilot in
aviation, several points in earlier researches have also shown that it not actually the loss of the
skills which are mainly manual who is considered to be the most problematic. It is actually the
ones which are cognitive and they are actually considered to be most problematic. All the
findings of the report clearly indicates that there are a number of huge challenges which are
coming up for the automotive industry as well as for all the authorities which are regulatory.
Several essential progress are needed to be made like interfaces of human-machine of the
automated vehicles and also on the drivers which are both training as well as licensing who are
actually going to utilise these types of news vehicles.

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