Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!whuts!spf
From: spf@whuts.UUCP (Steve Frysinger of Blue Feather Farm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Re: does AI kill?
Message-ID: <4563@whuts.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 88 13:43:51 GMT
References: <12626@sunybcs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 21

> Is anybody saying that firing the missle was the wrong decision under
> the circumstances?   The ship was, afterall, under attack by Iranian
> forces at the time, and the plane was flying in an unusual manner
> for a civilian aircraft (though not for a military one).  Is there
> any basis for claiming the Captain would have (or should have) made
> a different decision had the computer not even been there.

I think each of us will have to answer this for ourselves, as the
Captain of the cruiser will for the rest of his life.  Perhaps one
way to approach it is to consider an alternate scenario.

Suppose the Captain had not fired on the aircraft.  And suppose the
jet was then intentionally crashed into the ship (behavior seen in
WWII, and made plausible by other Iranian suicide missions and the
fact that Iranian forces were already engaging the ship).  Would
we now be criticizing the Captain for the death of his men by NOT
firing?

As I said, we each have to deal with this for ourselves.

Steve