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Unless you think we should stop having computers in planes, what are you proposing as a solution to that? More to the point, what does it have to do with system

by zrm 7y ago

Unless you think we should stop having computers in planes, what are you proposing as a solution to that? More to the point, what does it have to do with systemic risk or reducing it by staggering updates?

listenallyall 7y ago
The comment was criticizing your flippant attitude towards treating humans like beta testers, with the attitude that it's OK to kill a few, just not too many, and dismissal of goatinaboat's initial concern. I don't have a specific answer, because I agree that it's a problem far different than rolling out updates of a new browser version on everyone's laptop. "Technical solutions" acceptable in that scenario simply aren't good enough when the "OS" is speeding down the highway at 75 miles per hour.
- zrm 7y ago
  Here was goatinaboat's initial concern: > One bad software update kills... everyone. That's a fair concern. If you push a software update out to a hundred million cars at the same time which causes some of them to crash into oncoming traffic at high speed, you could have a large number of fatalities by the time you identify that there is a problem with the update. But phased deployments do mitigate that concern, because it provides time to notice the problem before the bad update is more widely deployed. That doesn't imply "treating humans like beta testers" because systemic risk is a real concern even when you have thorough internal testing. Even a thousand test vehicles will not encounter the full set of conditions that hundreds of millions will. You would expect to see a flaw that occurs for one vehicle out of 2000 occur 0 times on a fleet of 1000 test vehicles but 50,000 times on an installed base of a hundred million. Having a total of 50,000 fatal traffic collisions in one day is totally unacceptable, but having 10 on a bad day would mark a significant improvement from the status quo.
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    It's one thing to say "mitigate," which you do here, acknowledging that significant risk still exists. That's very different than the wording of your first comment, "technical solutions." A solution implies the risk is negated.

by zrm 7y ago

listenallyall 7y ago

The comment was criticizing your flippant attitude towards treating humans like beta testers, with the attitude that it's OK to kill a few, just not too many, and dismissal of goatinaboat's initial concern. I don't have a specific answer, because I agree that it's a problem far different than rolling out updates of a new browser version on everyone's laptop. "Technical solutions" acceptable in that scenario simply aren't good enough when the "OS" is speeding down the highway at 75 miles per hour.

zrm 7y ago
Here was goatinaboat's initial concern: > One bad software update kills... everyone. That's a fair concern. If you push a software update out to a hundred million cars at the same time which causes some of them to crash into oncoming traffic at high speed, you could have a large number of fatalities by the time you identify that there is a problem with the update. But phased deployments do mitigate that concern, because it provides time to notice the problem before the bad update is more widely deployed. That doesn't imply "treating humans like beta testers" because systemic risk is a real concern even when you have thorough internal testing. Even a thousand test vehicles will not encounter the full set of conditions that hundreds of millions will. You would expect to see a flaw that occurs for one vehicle out of 2000 occur 0 times on a fleet of 1000 test vehicles but 50,000 times on an installed base of a hundred million. Having a total of 50,000 fatal traffic collisions in one day is totally unacceptable, but having 10 on a bad day would mark a significant improvement from the status quo.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  It's one thing to say "mitigate," which you do here, acknowledging that significant risk still exists. That's very different than the wording of your first comment, "technical solutions." A solution implies the risk is negated.