Normally, aviation is slow to embrace new technology—but AI has come for the skies.

On September 27, US transportation secretary Sean Duffy posted a video on X with the words “GAME CHANGER.” “Introducing ‘SMART’—the new air traffic management tool that saves YOU time, cuts back DELAYS, and makes your flying experience BETTER,” he wrote. This was a new AI-infused air traffic control system. Almost three weeks later, that post would get a new life, as a nervous joke, as the FAA issued a national groundstop on Friday the 13th that instantly threw the world’s airline schedules into chaos. The administration quickly announced that there was no evidence of a cyberattack, and no sign that SMART had anything to do with the communications failure at the heart of the government’s decision to suspend flights.…