CSAIL responds to tweet from Trump about pilots, MIT computer scientists
President Donald J. Trump claimed in a tweet Tuesday that “pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.”
“Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly,” Trump tweeted. “Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better.”
Trump continued in a follow-up tweet, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!”
A few hours later, the official Twitter account of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory replied, “We're very happy to help. But maybe we can keep the pilots, too?”
The MIT Technology Review’s account also replied with a series of clapping emoji.
Trump’s tweet appears to be in response to the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash in Ethiopia Sunday, which killed all 157 people on board. Another Boeing 737 Max 8 plane operated by an Indonesian airline crashed into the sea in October 2018.