《Passage》-是人可靠还是软件可靠？

导读

MAX 8之后，是人可靠还是软件可靠这个问题又被推到了风口浪尖上。随着自动化在飞机，火车，轮船甚至汽车上的应用和普及，这个问题以后会更加频繁地走入人们的视野。

本期翻译：Peter/Mandy

校对：Linda

The computer in the cockpit

自动驾驶舱里的电脑

Why partial automation can be more dangerous than none at all

为什么半自动化比不进行自动化更加危险？

ONE WAY to tell who made the aircraft you are boarding is to steal a glimpseof the cockpit. A traditional control yoke in front of the pilots suggests a Boeing; a joystick beside each seat, an Airbus. Pilots argue about which system is better; neither is considered safer than the other. Each exemplifies a different approach to a problem that manufacturers of not just aircraft but also cars, trains and ships must grapple with as long as human operators handle increasingly automated machines.

有一种方法能够用来辨别你乘坐的飞机是谁开的，那就是朝驾驶舱里偷瞄一眼。播音飞机安装的是飞行员面前的老式控制杆，而每个座位旁边安装了控制杆的则是空客飞机。飞行员也在讨论哪一个系统更加安全，结果是没有哪一个比另一个更加安全。目前人要操作越来越多的自动化机器，而每一种系统都展现了飞机、汽车、火车、轮船等生产者解决问题的不同途径。

The challenge of what engineers call the “human-machine interface” has tragically gained attention after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 on March 10th. Eyewitnesses reported that shortly after departing Addis Ababa, the aircraft climbed and dived repeatedly. Similarities were drawn with a fatal crash in Indonesia in October last year. That time, the pilots of a Lion Air MAX 8 struggled, also soon after take-off, with an automated safety system that erroneously tried to prevent the aircraft from stalling by lowering its nose.

悲哀的是，在3月10日埃塞俄比亚航空波音737MAX 8型号飞机坠机之后，工程师口中的人机界面受到的挑战受到了广泛的关注。目击者称在飞离亚的斯亚贝巴不久，飞机就反复上下颠簸。去年十月印度尼西亚的一起严重坠机事件也有相似地情况出现。当时，在飞机起飞后不久，自动安全系统出现失误，试图通过降低飞机前端的机鼻以阻止飞机失速，开波音737MAX 8客机的印尼狮航飞行员曾努力纠正自动系统失误。

Although authorities around the world have grounded the model, Boeing insists that it is airworthy. The company is updating the MAX's automated flight-control software to make it easier for pilots to assume manual control. Boeing and Airbus both pack their planes with computers that do most of the flying. Each, though, espouses a different philosophy on how a pilot reacts to them, says Mudassir Lone of Cranfield University in Britain. Boeings are designed to make the pilot feel like the aviator in charge. Although the control yoke looks and feels like something from the analogue era, the way it behaves—including shaking when approaching a stall—is created digitally by a computer. Airbus's joystick is seldom used besides take-off and landing. A sound alerts the pilot to trouble; in an Airbus, he is more supervisor than airman.

尽管世界各国已经禁飞这个型号，但波音仍坚持它是适航的。公司正在升级MAX的飞行控制软件，使得飞行员更容易进行手动控制。波音和空客都给飞机装载了电脑来控制大部分的飞行。但是每一家信奉飞行员如何反应的信条都不同，英国克兰菲尔德大学的Mudassir Lone 说到。波音飞机设计者让飞行员们觉得他们在控制飞机。尽管操纵杆看起来感觉起来像来自模拟时代一样，但它的操作方式都是电脑数字创造出来的，包括刹车时候的抖动。空客的操作杆除了起飞和降落时都很少使用，会有声音提示飞行员所遇到的麻烦。在空客上，飞行员更像是管理者。

The big worry is what happens if a sensor feeds the flight-control system the wrong data. This might have happened in the Lion Air crash, according to a preliminary report. Something similar downed an Air France Airbus A330 over the Atlantic in 2009: an airspeed sensor iced over and the ensuing loss of data caused the autopilot to disengage. Unable to work out what was happening, the pilots lost control.

最大的担心就是假如一个传感器给飞行控制系统传递了错误的数据，会发生什么？一项初步报告显示，这种情况可能在狮航空难中发生过。类似的情况可能使一架法航空客A330在2009年坠毁于大西洋上。一个空速传感器结冰，随即而来的数据丢失导致了自动航行被解除。无法搞清楚什么在发生，飞行员失去了对飞机的控制。

Switching from automatic to manual is not straightforward. Flight-control systems may not disengage entirely. Instead, they might continue to assist the pilot in an attempt to prevent a dangerous manoeuvre. When things do go wrong, it is critical that pilots follow the correct procedures, which are different for each model of aircraft. Pilots learn these and carry checklists spelling them out. Proliferation of systems necessitates frequent retraining. To make life easier for pilots, the MAX 8 employs a system that makes it feel to them like older, more familiar versions of the 737. But this adds another layer of complexity.

从自动航行切换到手动航行并不是直接的。飞行控制系统并不会完全地解除。相反，他们可能继续会辅助飞行员，尝试阻其进行危险的操作。当事情真的变得糟糕时，飞行员遵循正确的程序是至关重要的，每个型号飞机的程序都是不同的。飞行员学习并携带这些核查表，并且要清楚地掌握。系统的激增使得频繁的再训练成为必要。为了使飞行员的训练变得更简单，Max 8所采用的系统让飞行员们觉得这是老版的、更熟悉的737的系统。但是这又增加了另外一层的复杂性。

Incidents are not confinedto aviation. In WashingtonD.C, automated trains have largely been out of service since 2009, when a faulty circuit made a stationary traininvisible to the safety system on the one behind it. The driver was unable to brake in time; the resulting crash killed nine people. Ships may soon face similar problems. Some ferries and offshore support vessels have already replaced ship's wheels with computer-assisted joysticks. A series of accidents involving self-driving cars may have been caused by sensors' failure to recognize objects in the road, and drivers failing to respond fast enough.

这类事故不仅仅只发生在航空业。在华盛顿，自2009年以来，自动化的火车出现过大量的故障。当时故障的电路使得一辆停止的火车无视车上的安全系统，而驾驶员也无法及时刹车，导致9人死亡。轮船很快也会面临类似的问题，一些轮渡和支援船已经用计算机辅助的操作杆取代了船舵。因传感器不能识别路上的物体，司机也没有足够快的反应已导致了一系列无人驾驶车事故。

Studies have shown that when people have to wrest controlfrom an automated system, it can take them around five seconds to grasp what is happening. The monotonyof monitoring a semi-automated vehicle may reduce vigilance by provoking what psychologists refer to as “passive” fatigue. Such concerns have led some carmakers, Ford among them, to consider skipping semi-automation and go straight to something closer to full autonomy, cutting people out of the loop. That would remove the human-machine interface—but not humans' machine-induced fears.

已有研究表明当人们不得不从一个自动系统夺回控制权的时候，他们大概要花5秒左右才能搞清楚正在发生了什么。监控一个半自动化车辆相当单调，使得人们的警惕性降低，会诱发心理学家所称的被动疲劳。这样的担忧使得一些汽车制造商（如福特）开始考虑跳过半自动化而直接到到更接近全自动的过程，将人排除在外。那将会移除人机界面，但是不仅仅只有人类的机器才会引发恐惧。

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