alt Hacker News> A more recent example is the Boeing 737-Max where there was a focus on automating trim control. In that case, the automation made the system more complex, to the detriment of a pilot understanding and reacting to an abnormal operation
To be fair this is not entirely accurate: a focus was made on stall prevention in a very specific mode of flight given the variant's increased susceptibility to the pitch-power couple. It did not make the system any more complex per se than other airliners - see e.g. Airbus aircraft which do actually have autotrim in normal flight. The actual kicker was that the existence of MCAS was hidden to avoid the need for lengthy re-training of pilots if the 737 MAX was deemed sufficiently different from its predecessor variants (on top of MCAS being rather poorly implemented in its first iteration).
Fair enough. The “hidden” aspect is what I was alluding to…ie, control that exists but isn’t apparent to the pilots (and worse, intermittent). In the human factors world, it was more complex than the pilots assumed, but you’re right that it’s probably not the best description.
(As an aside, the hazard being mitigated, ie stall, has little bearing on whether or not it’s autonomous or complex, although it does impact whether its safety critical)