6 thoughts on “We’re Building A World-Sized Robot”

  1. There used to be a bookstore in Hermosa Beach that refused to use calculators. Every time they toted up your purchases, it was done by hand. Sometimes, the lines got a bit long. Just a small protest against the inevitability of SkyNet, but sort of quaint and comforting all the same.

    Always keep in mind Ford Prefect’s way of dealing with computers:

    “Ford carried on counting quietly. This is about the most aggressive thing you can do to a computer, the equivalent of going up to a human being and saying “Blood…blood…blood…blood…”
    – THHGTTG

  2. More regulation? The horror. We’ve had the solution from before we had computers.

    First, don’t believe the lie that a computer can’t be secured. A human can’t be secure, but software can be made bulletproof. It just requires craftsman that understand what they’re doing. They have to keep things within the limit of complexity that can be understood by the humble programmer.

    The solution is to hold accountable those that cause harm. That could be the OS or it could be some script kiddies… but harm should have penalties. When Bill Gates says he can “sell a ham sandwich with his OS” everyone else should have said, “sure, but you are going to pay for any harm” and mean it.

    1. “A human can’t be secure, but software can be made bulletproof.”

      Sure. So long as the software doesn’t actually do anything useful.

      In the real world, your code has bugs, the compiler has bugs, the third-party libraries have bugs, the operating system has bugs, and the CPU has bugs. The only way to eliminate all the bugs is to eliminate all the functionality.

      Which is why the ‘Internet Of Things’ is a retarded idea, except to those who expect to make money out of it.

      1. Edward, you are correct but not completely. To claim that functionality requires bugs is false on its face. There is a cost for quality which most are unwilling to pay, but that’s a different issue.

        It is even possible to have bug free code built on top of bug ridden code because it is possible very often to simply not use the bug ridden functionality of the underlying code.

        But again, it requires a certain standard of programmer which the current environment seldom produces.

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