He received a phone call from the assigned flight instructor, who ordered him to start normal procedures and take off; the evaluation would start with the plane in flight. It was not usual; His nerves increased, but he stuck to the instructions.
– Good morning – he heard the instructor salute when he entered the Control Station.
– Good morning, sir – he replied and informed that there was no news.
The instructor extracted a paper with some coordinates and handed them to him saying:
– Fly to this point and direct the electro-optical camera to these coordinates.
He did it without delay, it was a very easy task.
He flew the plane to the coordinates and pointed the sensor to the place, it was an ordinary house in a middle class neighborhood. After a few minutes a person left and got into a car.
– Follow that car and do not lose it for any reason – said the instructor.Another simple task: the system could automatically follow a vehicle in motion. When the car stopped and the person got off, the flight instructor ordered him:
– Give me those coordinates.
The aspirant wrote them diligently on a sheet of paper and handed them to the instructor.
– Congratulations, your exam is approved . He is already a UAV pilot. I will return later to write your rating; the aircraft can land.
The new pilot was stunned. Stunned, happy and relieved. It was not what I expected from an exam. It was not what he had heard, it was not even what the evaluation guide pointed out, but, after all, he was already a UAV pilot and his effort had been rewarded.
He performed the recovery procedures of the aircraft and landed without observations, filled the log and waited in the building for the instructor to return.
A few hours later, all the students and instructors were summoned to a meeting by the Director of the Institute, who informed them that an instructor had been expelled because, taking advantage of the flight of a final exam, he had ordered the student to fly the UAV to his house to Follow his wife and be able to know where she was meeting with her lover.
This story is true. And it puts us on alert, once again, of the ethical challenges of the use of technologies.
Traditional pilots must pass exhaustive physical exams that demonstrate their organic indemnity, where the use of their arms, legs and hearing, among others, should be optimal. In the case of UAV pilots, it may be irrelevant because a problem in the middle ear that causes a balance problem and that would be a reason not to pass a medical examination in traditional aviation is irrelevant to operating a UAV, since the remote operation of the aircraft eliminates physiological aspects that are essential when the person is in the air commanding the aerodyne.
The above opens an interesting space for the inclusion of people with disabilities, since, being remotely flown from a ground control station, being in a wheelchair, for example, could not be an obstacle to perform fully in command of these aircraft.
On the other hand, the battery of tests and psychological interviews that are carried out on the pilots of manned aircraft, point fundamentally to discard of constant form, indicators of depression that could put in risk the passengers of the ships, as it happened with the 144 passengers of flight 9525 of Germanwings on March 24, 2015, in which the first officer crashed the plane in the French Alps to commit suicide.
The UAV does not have passengers (yet), but has powerful sensors, which opens the ethical discussion of “what and why” we look for the information and / or data that these technologies can provide us.
Psychopathy or disorder of the antisocial personality is a disorder characterized by a behavior with little regard for the other and marked prioritization of one’s own interests. His diagnosis includes seven symptoms: dissatisfaction with social norms, manipulation, impulsiveness, irritability or aggressiveness, little attention to one’s own or others’ safety, irresponsibility and lack of remorse in the face of harm to third parties. For many psychiatrists the existence of 3 of them can be considered as a reflection of such disorder, with all that implies for themselves and their peers:
This disorder is common in people who perform acts where the laws are broken, but it is also quite common than we would like in other areas. Martha Stout in her book Sociopath Next Door (“The sociopath of the next door”), states that one in four Americans – and by extension Western – could classify this disorder; that is, 25% of the population …) which is coupled with the development of a society that is based on competition and avoids looking at the common good.
All this with clear cognitive intelligence … well, the big scams, not those who were less advantaged students, but people with high intellectual performance and poor value development. Likewise, many terrorists are people with high intellectual skills, fighting in an obsessive way for their own interests, without consideration for the interests of the other for whom this new technology could represent an ideal weapon to achieve their goals of generating confusion and fear in the population.
So, the discussion of the suitability of the UAV pilots, and the selection processes, should not focus on the physical, this represents an opportunity for people in general, the challenge is in sizing the ethical and value adjustment, of those who are destined to lead the airspace of tomorrow.
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