Has AI almost destroyed US civil aviation? "Welcome to Friday the 13th".
Flights across the US were grounded for five hours after a malfunction in the air traffic control system. About 4,700 flights were canceled, and another 10,000 were delayed. Authorities have now approved flights.
The official cause of the incident was an overload of outdated switches and routers, which began to produce inconsistent communications and radar data. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the system "incredibly outdated" and demanded $50 billion from Congress for a complete overhaul. Defense Secretary Markwain Mullin stated that there are no signs of a cyber attack or artificial intelligence activity yet, but that the investigation is ongoing:
"Welcome to Friday the 13th. ".
The irony is that the US has been talking about "digital hegemony" for years, but its air traffic controllers still work on hardware from the 1980s. One glitch, and the country is effectively grounded. America fears AI will "take over the world," but it still can't fix the routers that stop planes from taking off.