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> Why do we need a person to transcribe a machine message Because it prevented World War III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_in

by pdkl95 10y ago

> Why do we need a person to transcribe a machine message Because it prevented World War III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar... > he's going to send them anyway The good judgment of Stanislav Petrov shows that this isn't guaranteed. Automation that can harm people always requires a human fail-safe. Leaving judgment to a mechanism only implies either hubris that assumes all possible situations have been accounted for, or enough narcissism to not care about the (possibly deadly) errors.

icebraining 10y ago
Sounds like confirmation bias. If an algorithm had made the right call against human judgment, would you be arguing for the opposite position?
- chunky1994 10y ago
  It's more that we don't have strong enough decision making computers/algorithms to rival a human's capabilities in cases where the action (in this case not having lots of weapons but apparently only one being launched) isn't exactly a binary decision. A computer could theoretically have advocated that this wasn't an actual nuclear launch, but the only way that would happen is if a programmer had been clever enough to have written an algorithm to account for the situation when writing the transcription machine. A human can currently do a much better job when the outcome is that millions of people die , especially if its a sensor error. That's not to say that humans are infallible, just that we do not currently have the level of AI required to replace one.
- glorp 10y ago
  In Dr. Strangelove, the absurd behavior of buffoonish humans contributes to the doomsday scenario. Idiots blindly following the orders of a madman on one side, and psychos constructing a completely automated self-destruct mechanism attached to a retaliatory weapon on the other side. Both are bad, but people playing the game at all, were the real problem.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    You know that was a satirical fictional film, right?
    - wonkaWonka 10y ago
      http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in... With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed to let American officers use their nuclear weapons, in an emergency, if there were no time or no means to contact the President. Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. And about half a dozen high-level American commanders were allowed to use far more powerful nuclear weapons, without contacting the White House first, when their forces were under attack and “the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision by the President, or other person empowered to act in his stead.” Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a top official at the Department of Defense had already sent a copy of “Red Alert” to every member of the Pentagon’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles. At the Pentagon, the book was taken seriously as a cautionary tale about what might go wrong. A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system - a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. I believe that's check and mate, old chap?
      - arethuza 10y ago
        Also some of the quotes from US military leaders at the time sound like something from Stranglove: "Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power

by pdkl95 10y ago

icebraining 10y ago

Sounds like confirmation bias. If an algorithm had made the right call against human judgment, would you be arguing for the opposite position?

chunky1994 10y ago
It's more that we don't have strong enough decision making computers/algorithms to rival a human's capabilities in cases where the action (in this case not having lots of weapons but apparently only one being launched) isn't exactly a binary decision. A computer could theoretically have advocated that this wasn't an actual nuclear launch, but the only way that would happen is if a programmer had been clever enough to have written an algorithm to account for the situation when writing the transcription machine. A human can currently do a much better job when the outcome is that millions of people die , especially if its a sensor error. That's not to say that humans are infallible, just that we do not currently have the level of AI required to replace one.
glorp 10y ago
In Dr. Strangelove, the absurd behavior of buffoonish humans contributes to the doomsday scenario. Idiots blindly following the orders of a madman on one side, and psychos constructing a completely automated self-destruct mechanism attached to a retaliatory weapon on the other side. Both are bad, but people playing the game at all, were the real problem.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  You know that was a satirical fictional film, right?
  - wonkaWonka 10y ago
    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in... With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed to let American officers use their nuclear weapons, in an emergency, if there were no time or no means to contact the President. Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. And about half a dozen high-level American commanders were allowed to use far more powerful nuclear weapons, without contacting the White House first, when their forces were under attack and “the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision by the President, or other person empowered to act in his stead.” Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a top official at the Department of Defense had already sent a copy of “Red Alert” to every member of the Pentagon’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles. At the Pentagon, the book was taken seriously as a cautionary tale about what might go wrong. A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system - a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. I believe that's check and mate, old chap?
    - arethuza 10y ago
      Also some of the quotes from US military leaders at the time sound like something from Stranglove: "Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power