It is on your smartphone right now, and is likely to be in your aircraft cockpit soon. Artificial intelligence (AI) could be the next step in improving aviation safety, or perhaps the technology that banishes the human pilot from the cockpit. Artificial intelligence can loosely be defined as computers doing things that used to be done by people. But definitions of artificial intelligence are fluid, and the subject has instilled a sense of unease since the premiere of the play Rossum's Universal Robots, nearly a century ago. Capabilities once associated with artificial intelligence, such as calculation, optical character recognition, or indeed, the ability of an autopilot to maintain straight and level flight, have fallen off the definition, as they become commonplace.

And now, AI invades the skies. Algorithms are learning to predict delays, giving airports and airlines a better shot at avoiding them. Airlines like EasyJet and Emirates are using the tech to remake the ticketing process painless and turn the in-flight experience into a personalized joy. But the true promise sits in the cockpit, where AI autopilots could help manage the complex airline operations and even respond to the millisecond-urgency of unfolding cockpit crises. Research here is young but developing quickly.

ON JUNE 1st 2009, an Air France airliner travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris flew into a mid-Atlantic storm. Ice began forming in the sensors used by the aircraft to measure its airspeed, depriving the autopilot of that vital data. So, by design, the machine switched itself off and ceded control to the pilots. Without knowing their speed, and with no horizon visible in a storm in the dead of night, the crew struggled to cope. Against all their training, they kept the plane's nose pointed upward, forcing it to lose speed and lift.