PCBEEUSA - Freedom on the Web

I used to laugh at movies like “Colossus: The Forbin Project”,”War Games”  or even “The Terminator” series where  supercomputers or robots are given so much power and control over our lives that they decide that they know what is best and take over.  I used to laugh beacause, I would think, “who would give that much control to a machine? Who would trust a machine to such an extent?”

I just read a story about a demolition company that actually tore down the wrong house because, as they claim, their GPS system sent them to the wrong location.  According to the story, they were just given the GPS coordinates.

What?  No one looked at addresses?  Were there no descriptions of the property?  They put so much absolute trust in the technology that there were no checks and balances?

The problem is a man’s childhood home (which was empty at the time) with all of the photos, keepsakes and memories are gone.  Because of, supposedly, a technical glitch.

I don’t laugh at the “computers take over the world” movies anymore.  No, I don’t think there are any super-intelligent machines out there, nor do I think there ever will be.  But we have gotten so lazy that we happily turn control of our lives over to the machines.

Young people no longer know how to do simple math.  In elementary school they use calculators, in high school and college they use computers (I used a slide rule). Those that get jobs at fast food chains and retail stores only have to press the buttons on the register. All of the math is done for them, and it tells them how much change to give.  They don’t have to think, so they don’t.

I teach computer technology, and I am constantly counseling people to not trust the spell checker and grammar checker in thier Word Processor.  They are only there to make suggestions.  When I teach spreadsheets and databases, I often have adult students who are suprised and disappointed when they learn that they have to think before building a solution; the software can do the work, but you have to tell it what work and how.

A computer can never replace the human mind.

Of course, the whole idea of computers was to make life a little easier, and to make the complex possible.  But we have allowed ourselves to become a “spoon fed” society of people who choose not to think.  So now we go to the movies and see super robots, warp speed space ships and light sabers and think it all possible.

Now I am a little scared.

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