Could Machines Do Aircraft Dispatcher Jobs?

The ultimate question posed on all industries as we move further and further into the digital age is: can my job be replaced by a machine? It is a scary question that many industries face; but some industries just cannot be replaced by machines. Aircraft dispatcher jobs are among those that cannot be replaced, so aspiring aircraft dispatchers can rest easy that they will have job security against robots in years to come.  

A New York Times article asked the question: will pilots be replaced by computers? Experts agree that we are years or even decades away from that reality. Although the autopilot function has come leaps an bounds and some say pilots are just there for emergencies or unusual occurrences, the issue is that there are often times when human intuition, fast thinking, and experience will always be far more efficient than automations and robotics. Aircraft dispatcher jobs are not going anywhere for the same reasons.  

Machines enhance the work of aircraft dispatchers, and they have surely made the job itself much more efficient, but machines will not be taking aircraft dispatcher jobs anytime soon. Sheffield School of Aeronautics has more on the topic: 

Fast Decision Making 

Computers are good at multitasking to a point, but pure intuition is something that computers and robotics are years away from achieving. An MIT algorithm sought to test a computer’s ability to mimic human intuition by looking at simple things like weekly profits on a financial system, and it did fairly well.  

The problem is that there is far too much to predict and work with on a given day as an aircraft dispatcher, that computers and robots would not be able to do the job on their own. What may seem like common occurrences in the day-to-day life of an aircraft dispatcher are actually difficult measurements to predict by our latest computer standards.  

There Are No Perfect Days 

It is true that we live in a time of super computers. There are machines that can calculate micro fluctuations on the market and make billions of trades in a single day to profit from these fluctuations; but those are formulaic. Within a given system, if you can break down the rules with simplicity and perfection, then machines can master it. In terms of an aircraft dispatcher job, there is no simplicity or formula for machines to be able to do the job efficiently.   

An aircraft dispatcher’s day is uncertain to say the least. Emergency weather developments or airport delays are common. The computers we have today are just incapable of making decisions based on irregular data. An experienced aircraft dispatcher has more knowledge and computing power than any super computer today or on the near horizon. 

The Human Brain is the Most Complicated Computer  

The human brain is complex and that’s obvious when we look at the slow moving progress of neuroscience. At this point, science is nowhere near the point where machines could take aircraft dispatcher jobs.