[budj]

Very good article, worth the read, about computer-based algorithms. I used to do this for manufacturing, and agree with everything in the article.

[GingisK]

Too many “cut and paste” coders, not enough actual programmers .

[Clutch Martin]

Way back when, I took Fortran, Cobol, C+ & C++, Basic (I think)... I did well on the course work. But it cured me of any aspirations I had of a career in programming.

[Alberta's Child]

Interesting article. I have a professional interest in autonomous vehicle development, and I've been warning about the risks associated with them for years. I've determined that the core of the problem is really simple:

1. Automation is fine when it is used to replace human functionality. A computer or machine can always be designed to do a predictable function better, faster and/or more precisely than a human.

2. The danger comes when automation is used to replace human judgement. Driving is a perfect example of this. Most of the operational aspects of a vehicle that can be upgraded to replace the human function have already been automated. Now we have industry operating in a realm where they are trying to replace human judgement, and it isn't working.

[khelus]

Thanks for posting. This is a very interesting article

[AppyPappy]

That’s why you test. It sounds like they are testing in Production.

[huldah1776]

I love the “garbage in - garbage out” phrase. Applicable to a lot more than just programming. Take education for example...LOL

[Tell It Right]

I’ll throw in an extra wrinkle I’ve seen in my IT years, some of which were in industries that are heavily regulated like I imagine the DOT is doing with automated driving.

In all industries there’s a tendency to not change what works. That’s practical and is often a good strategy. However, in highly regulated environments you often can’t change what’s already working unless you go through a lot of red tape. So, say you’re adding a new feature in version 20.0 of the software, and you realize that there are some scenarios, though very rare, where the algorithm of the new feature would interfere with one of the old features (often by slightly changing the assumptions of what the old algorithm is based on). What do you do? Answer: you notify your supervisor/project manager and suggest the changes that need to be made. Sometimes they forward it up to the people really in charge (i.e. where the funding comes from, often the gubmint). Response: they don’t want to be responsible for authorizing the change on the algorithm that’s been working for years. They’d rather handle the fallout when it breaks by not being altered to handle the new scenario.

[Drango]

Over time, (one week, one month, one year...) self driving cars will reduce road fatalities significantly.

[Paladin2]

"code piled on code creates ‘a universe no one fully understands’"

It's called the Internet.

[USS Alaska]

Back in the 90s I sold financial systems to Wall Street based mostly on either Sybase or Oracle and UNIX based computers, which were ahead of the curve , but today are looked upon as tinker toys.

Having been semi-exposed to computer trading systems, I have both an appreciation as well as fear of these systems.

You can't put the toothpaste back into the tube.

[catnipman]

I would really like to see some top notch mathematicians versed in chaos/complexity theory take a look at the driving environment as a whole, involving the tens of thousands of factors involved in driving on all roads ranging from dirt trails to interstate highways, city driving to driveways, all weather and driving conditions, all levels of skills, all behaviors of driving, all types of vehicles, et. al., and render a verdict on the level of chaos/complexity involved and the resulting probability of success in building an autonomous driving vehicle ... my guess is that the verdict would be that driving is a chaotic system that is literally mathematically impossible to program a solution for ... after decades of trying, we STILL cannot automatically translate accurately from one language to another, a MUCH simpler task in terms of complexity than driving ...

[publius911]

not least because Ellen Ullman, in addition to having been a distinguished professional programmer since the 1970s, is one of the few people to write revealingly about the process of coding. There’s not much she doesn’t know about software in the wild.
“People say, ‘Well, what about Facebook – they create and use algorithms and they can change them.’

But that’s not how it works. They set the algorithms off and they learn and change and run themselves.

Facebook intervene in their running periodically, but they really don’t control them. And particular programs don’t just run on their own, they call on libraries, deep operating systems and so on ...”

That last underlined sentence should send chills to every human being on the planet, computer user or driver of a normal vehicle on public roads.

By far, the most numerous system in the world is Microsoft, more and more allowed to issue "updates" to their operating system with the full intention of expecting their users to be the beta testers of the changes or wholesale OS revisions.

Microsoft has no ethics, morals or a conscience.
Criminally so.

Any algorythm-rich application is almost certain to fail fatally if based on such an OS.
If Microsoft can't be bothered to troubleshoot revisions to their OS, what chance do commercial users of their OS have (Without killing a few dozen users.)?

[lepton]

The article also gives some reasons why Googles withdrawal from *Specific* DoD programs may actually make a lot of sense.

Weaponizing AI that you not only don’t understand, but probably CAN’T understand does sound like a bad idea.