Pilots, Drones, and Simulations

Wolf’s points on not being able to see outside the lens of cameras and the correlation of simulations versus real time/life develop a few questions and some interesting insights. Wolf talks about the simulations (training for real-world situations) and their possible disconnect with reality; the first thing that came to mind was drone pilots. The simulation for a drone pilot is almost exactly the same as the actual act of flying a drone. The drone displays live streaming video to the pilot, half-way around the world, flying it. The experience then becomes a synchronized act. Pilots develop the muscle-memory necessary to pilot these expensive machines through simulation alone. However, the stress of knowing you are flying a real drone with a hefty price tag can affect the pilot’s performance; this stress cannot be recreated in a simulation.

Recently there have been other claims of stress that effect drone operators. Some have talked about the indifference the job enforces on them. The missile strike on a target appears to feel like a video game. This “feel” is easy for the public to digest but it left a sour taste in some of the pilot’s mouths. They did not know who they were killing, but they knew it was a real life human being. The transmission of the video to the pilot does not take away from its real world implications. So Wolf’s claim that simulations can’t recreate real world situations is both true and false. In many ways it can create the experience and the necessary muscle-memory to successful operate in real-time; a simulator, on the other hand cannot yet fully recreate the stresses associated with the real world. I believe that this experience may one day be harnessed to its full potential, though.

Another interesting faucet is the loss of the peripheral when using a camera lens. The “big picture” may not always be realized by those viewing the square piece of the puzzle. Paradoxically, a drone is perceived to “see all,” but in reality is grounded by the same principle as my camera phone—we can’t see everywhere at once. This can play a rather grim role in the drone pilots’ distaste for the feel of indiscriminant killing. What if these people are innocent bystanders mistaken for threats in a gun battle? The drone operators are not always capable of choosing targets, sometimes they are given targets. Their peripheral picture can be lost and reduced to a square viewing of a target.

On a lighter note, Mishra’s speak about graphic interpretations and Wolf’s talk of plane instruments brought me once again back to drone pilots. The instruments represent certain mathematics and wind dynamics that the user doesn’t have to have P.H.D. level knowledge on to understand how to read it. Of course, there is a learning curve to know how to read it as Mishra talks about. Once the basic knowledge has been obtained to operate it, the user need not bother with the sciences behind the technology.