June 23, 2010 at 9:22 am
Another interesting tidbit from the story:
"Almost as puzzling as why she has set the lower bar for suing the world's biggest ad broker at a mere $100,000"
Perhaps the woman isn't greedy, and only seeks to pay the medical bills she will probably never be able to pay herself.
Now wouldn't that be a refreshing change from the multi-million dollar lawsuits we see so frequently these days.
June 23, 2010 at 10:05 am
Henrico Bekker (6/23/2010)
...we as humans still have the power over computers.
Overridden your ABS brakes, traction control, or the air/fuel mixture in your engine lately? Those are all computer controlled, and I'd take their decisions over anyone I know.
Traction control, as I understand it, is integrated into our vehicles primarily to compensate for human incorrect decisions. Driver enters curve too fast, physics triumphs in keeping car in near-straight line, and car ends up in ditch. It was an "accident", not driving too fast for the road conditions or even just a stupid human decision. When traction control enters the picture the computer senses, from the turn of the steering wheel, that the car isn't going where its wanted and selectively applies breaking and power to opposite wheels. This computer control/brain has kept a lot of cars on roads around curves, and it will contintue to keep more and more. Until humans start taking curves even faster because they think the computer will keep them on the road. And when it doesn't there will be an "accident", with the computer being blamed.
June 23, 2010 at 10:31 am
Samuel F Smith (6/23/2010)
What I'm amazed at is that usually on the mapping web sites there is a disclaimer saying that the data may be inaccurate and to use the data as a planning tool and to use your own common sense. Hmmmm...
All collected data is potentially out of date, and/or inaccurate. Data from a real-time sensor can be out of date due to an inappropriate sampling interval. Most maping data has been collected by humans, and for purposes other than what it is now being used for.
For a Parks employee the location of a tree within a 10 metre radius is probably accurate enough, for most purposes. And that will suffice for their entire career. A Sewer design professional would probably like to know within a few centimetres where the edge of a tree is located. And that's a value that will potentially change significantly throughout their career as the tree grows.
I believe the case should be dismissed. Using free data inappropriately she got herself hurt. Had considerable $ been paid for the use of the data for that agreed upon purpose, then there would be a liability. Tragically, in my opinion, I suspect the US "justice" system will decide on behalf of the injured.
July 8, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Good article (as always), Steve. (I'm just getting around to reading this now -- I was on vacation last week, so I'm a little behind.)
Every time I hear a story about someone following Google to the letter and getting hurt, or someone who doesn't know how to make change without a calculator, or someone who doesn't think about hot coffee spilling when they put the cup in their lap, I just shake my head. Whatever happened to common sense?
I recently taught a class (I teach part-time at a small business school) in web site design. Although the class used Dreamweaver, for the first couple of weeks, I made the class build web sites using only straight HTML in MS Notepad. I wanted to drive home the point that they shouldn't rely on the technology; they needed to know why things work the way they do.
I remember a line in one of Tom Clancy's books -- something to the effect of "even though the sub used GPS positioning and navigation, the hardcopy maps were kept, anyway. After all, paper couldn't break."
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Check out my blog at https://pianorayk.wordpress.com/
December 8, 2014 at 2:19 am
blandry (6/23/2010)
Personally, I think its worse than that...A few days ago I was at a convenience store picking up a few essentials. My total came to $10.47 and I handed the young lady a $20 dollar bill. Unfortunately, their cash register was not working properly and the young lady had to make change "in her head".
It was amazing to watch this young person standing there completely frozen, unable to calculate how much change I was due. A couple of times she politely apologized, but it was clear she had NO clue how to figure out how much change I was due. At one point she handed me $20 and 3 cents, and then mumbled "no no, thats not right..."
I couldn't stand it any longer - I was not angry, I was saddened to see her so befuddled. Finally I said to her, "Start from 10.47 and count as you take change, up to 20 dollars." She managed to work that out and then smiled a huge smile at me and said "Wow! Thats a great trick!!!" I thought, yeah, like I should get a Nobel prize for that one...
More than "us" needing human judgement, in many cases, such as this one I experienced (and not for the first time), computers are to some degree helping to "dumb-down" our youth and society in general. There are a number of futurists who have written about this and painted pictures of a coming "Idiocracy" where humans back-peddle so far in basic knowledge that we become "slaves" to machines - not like in the "Terminator" movies, but simply because we lose the ability to think for ourselves.
Yes, we still need human judgement - but what happens when that human judgement is so watered-down and dependant on machines thats its useless? Maybe our doom lies not in disasters, asteroids, or super-viruses - maybe it lies in our own concerted efforts to be, well, stupid.
Hopefully developers/dbas wil still be able to calculate without the computer because they are the ones that will be the human judgement on computers. It is however, worrying to see that people become so dependant on computers that they cannot work sums out from the "head".
Manie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I am happy because I choose to be happy.
I just love my job!!!
December 8, 2014 at 4:46 am
Abstraction can improve speed of operation but for those that don't understand the system it definitely can lead to ignorance which is seldom good.
It is not going to be an issue with those individuals that visit this site as they will have deep understanding of their systems backed up with theoretical knowledge.
I certainly sometimes have difficulties getting the importance of following processes correctly across to people if they do not understand any of the fundamental principles of system design and their knowledge of processes is very "rote". This generally means that they have reduced capacity to deal with unusual situations , slower learning speed , inability to make connections , a lack of flexibilty and worryingly quite often a complete inability to prioritise work.
Compare that with individuals who although even maybe don't control processes understand relational data structures. If its their process they can suggest alternative ways to progress and in many instances have already foreseen issues. Invetivably this means many issues just don't even get started as they stopped them actually before they occurred.
December 8, 2014 at 9:00 am
blandry (6/23/2010)
Personally, I think its worse than that...A few days ago I was at a convenience store picking up a few essentials. My total came to $10.47 and I handed the young lady a $20 dollar bill. Unfortunately, their cash register was not working properly and the young lady had to make change "in her head".
It was amazing to watch this young person standing there completely frozen, unable to calculate how much change I was due. A couple of times she politely apologized, but it was clear she had NO clue how to figure out how much change I was due. At one point she handed me $20 and 3 cents, and then mumbled "no no, thats not right..."
I couldn't stand it any longer - I was not angry, I was saddened to see her so befuddled. Finally I said to her, "Start from 10.47 and count as you take change, up to 20 dollars." She managed to work that out and then smiled a huge smile at me and said "Wow! Thats a great trick!!!" I thought, yeah, like I should get a Nobel prize for that one...
More than "us" needing human judgement, in many cases, such as this one I experienced (and not for the first time), computers are to some degree helping to "dumb-down" our youth and society in general. There are a number of futurists who have written about this and painted pictures of a coming "Idiocracy" where humans back-peddle so far in basic knowledge that we become "slaves" to machines - not like in the "Terminator" movies, but simply because we lose the ability to think for ourselves.
Yes, we still need human judgement - but what happens when that human judgement is so watered-down and dependant on machines thats its useless? Maybe our doom lies not in disasters, asteroids, or super-viruses - maybe it lies in our own concerted efforts to be, well, stupid.
No different in the UK. Friday night I was getting Fish'n'Chips. It came to £11.20 so I gave a £20 note a £1 coin and a 20p coin. The poor girl couldn't work out that I needed a £10 note change. No more. No less.
The Mrs has a worse example. In a shop there was an item advertised as 50% off the original price of £10. Two women together looked interested and took it to a till because they couldn't work it out. A girl at one till couldn't work it out so she asked a girl at another till who promptly grabbed her calculated before punching buttons and looking dumbfounded. A supervisor walked passed, saw the commotion and she just told them it was £5 (worked out in her head of course).
BTW men are no better :'-(
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
December 8, 2014 at 9:05 am
manie (12/8/2014)
Yes, we still need human judgement - but what happens when that human judgement is so watered-down and dependant on machines thats its useless? Maybe our doom lies not in disasters, asteroids, or super-viruses - maybe it lies in our own concerted efforts to be, well, stupid.
Hopefully developers/dbas wil still be able to calculate without the computer because they are the ones that will be the human judgement on computers. It is however, worrying to see that people become so dependant on computers that they cannot work sums out from the "head".[/quote]
The judgement is a pretty big issue. Examples like calculation or even vehicle control are both mathematically simple, and benefit from speed and sensor inputs. They require no judgement whatsoever. Just like the auto focus and exposure controls on cameras, they're fast and potentially accurate, but are formulaic and need to be over ridden to various degrees. (BTW, I find ABS brakes very annoying, they fight the driver, though the newer ones seem less intrusive than the older ones).
Interesting article here:
Basic point (longish article, which addresses lots of objections, well worth the read) is the mathematically based argument that the human brain accomplishes things that are not even theoretically possible with a Turing machine (including current concepts of quantum computers), so simply adding more speed and memory will still hit a wall when it comes to creating new concepts.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
December 8, 2014 at 9:40 am
Gary Varga (12/8/2014)
No different in the UK. Friday night I was getting Fish'n'Chips. It came to £11.20 so I gave a £20 note a £1 coin and a 20p coin. The poor girl couldn't work out that I needed a £10 note change. No more. No less.
The Mrs has a worse example. In a shop there was an item advertised as 50% off the original price of £10. Two women together looked interested and took it to a till because they couldn't work it out. A girl at one till couldn't work it out so she asked a girl at another till who promptly grabbed her calculated before punching buttons and looking dumbfounded. A supervisor walked passed, saw the commotion and she just told them it was £5 (worked out in her head of course).
BTW men are no better :'-(
There are plenty of things we no longer NEED to know. It's easy to laugh at people who can't count change, but how many people here could derive a sine or a logarithm without a calculator? Even a square root? And if you DO remember the technique, could you explain WHY you take those steps?
As things get more mechanized, we apply our brains to different skills. Many highly intelligent people don't really know much about how their automobile works, and that's ok. We have skilled diagnostic trained mechanics who handle that for us.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
December 8, 2014 at 10:18 am
Raju Lalvani (6/23/2010)
We will also lose our ability to spell. Spell check will take both lose and loose as correct. 😛
Enough people fail to hit the "Spell Check" button here 😉
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
December 8, 2014 at 10:33 am
jay-h (12/8/2014)
Gary Varga (12/8/2014)
No different in the UK. Friday night I was getting Fish'n'Chips. It came to £11.20 so I gave a £20 note a £1 coin and a 20p coin. The poor girl couldn't work out that I needed a £10 note change. No more. No less.
The Mrs has a worse example. In a shop there was an item advertised as 50% off the original price of £10. Two women together looked interested and took it to a till because they couldn't work it out. A girl at one till couldn't work it out so she asked a girl at another till who promptly grabbed her calculated before punching buttons and looking dumbfounded. A supervisor walked passed, saw the commotion and she just told them it was £5 (worked out in her head of course).
BTW men are no better :'-(
There are plenty of things we no longer NEED to know. It's easy to laugh at people who can't count change, but how many people here could derive a sine or a logarithm without a calculator? Even a square root? And if you DO remember the technique, could you explain WHY you take those steps?
As things get more mechanized, we apply our brains to different skills. Many highly intelligent people don't really know much about how their automobile works, and that's ok. We have skilled diagnostic trained mechanics who handle that for us.
I am sure that you are not accusing me of one of those that "laugh at people who can't count change" but I feel compelled to respond. The key point is that none of these people were likely able to do the simple task of both working out that it was asking what half of 10 was and that the answer is 5. One even failed with a calculator.
My maths skills are not very good. Not when I think of advanced mathematics or even the student version of me. My point was illustrating what I deemed to be the theme of the editorial in that the basic skills a human needs are being left behind with over reliance on technological props.
We should not laugh at these people. They have been let down. Some of them aren't even able to recognise it.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
December 8, 2014 at 11:10 am
Gary Varga (12/8/2014)
Raju Lalvani (6/23/2010)
We will also lose our ability to spell. Spell check will take both lose and loose as correct. 😛Enough people fail to hit the "Spell Check" button here 😉
Ahh the internet (and texting). Actually standardized spelling is a relatively modern invention, maybe a couple hundred years old. We're now coming full circle. 😉
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
December 8, 2014 at 12:57 pm
blandry (6/23/2010)
Personally, I think its worse than that...A few days ago I was at a convenience store picking up a few essentials. My total came to $10.47 and I handed the young lady a $20 dollar bill. Unfortunately, their cash register was not working properly and the young lady had to make change "in her head".
It was amazing to watch this young person standing there completely frozen, unable to calculate how much change I was due. A couple of times she politely apologized, but it was clear she had NO clue how to figure out how much change I was due. At one point she handed me $20 and 3 cents, and then mumbled "no no, thats not right..."
I couldn't stand it any longer - I was not angry, I was saddened to see her so befuddled. Finally I said to her, "Start from 10.47 and count as you take change, up to 20 dollars." She managed to work that out and then smiled a huge smile at me and said "Wow! Thats a great trick!!!" I thought, yeah, like I should get a Nobel prize for that one...
More than "us" needing human judgement, in many cases, such as this one I experienced (and not for the first time), computers are to some degree helping to "dumb-down" our youth and society in general. There are a number of futurists who have written about this and painted pictures of a coming "Idiocracy" where humans back-peddle so far in basic knowledge that we become "slaves" to machines - not like in the "Terminator" movies, but simply because we lose the ability to think for ourselves.
Yes, we still need human judgement - but what happens when that human judgement is so watered-down and dependant on machines thats its useless? Maybe our doom lies not in disasters, asteroids, or super-viruses - maybe it lies in our own concerted efforts to be, well, stupid.
I agree. Great example.
December 8, 2014 at 2:12 pm
As much as I see the issue blandry brought up continuously these days - it's really not about "human judgment", but about personal skills. Not having those basic skills might interfere with our ability to challenge the results, but still these are two different problems.
Machines these days are restricted in detecting the patterns we've coded into them. BI can really only handle dealing with analyzing items within the constraints we've already incorporated into the model: if it's not "in the model" then any analysis against that will not yield any meaningful results. Sure, some can learn additional items in a few cases, but even then - they are restricted in how they can expand their pool of knowledge.
We on the other hand have the ability to detect whether an existing pattern might also apply in a new scenario or if something new needs to be done. This does require the ability to crticially analyze a scenario and determine if we have anything suitable in our arnseal or not, which is tough for a human and even harder for machines (in many cases not possible).
While we no doubt need to have abilities in both areas, if I had to choose between the two and only know one, I'd delegate the rote calculations to something that can do it as well or better than I, and retain the ability to direct the higher functions over the guidance froma machine.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
December 9, 2014 at 11:08 am
jay-h (12/8/2014)
Gary Varga (12/8/2014)
Raju Lalvani (6/23/2010)
We will also lose our ability to spell. Spell check will take both lose and loose as correct. 😛Enough people fail to hit the "Spell Check" button here 😉
Ahh the internet (and texting). Actually standardized spelling is a relatively modern invention, maybe a couple hundred years old. We're now coming full circle. 😉
Actually a fair and correct point.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
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