Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!otter!sn
From: sn@otter.hple.hp.com (Srinivas Nedunuri)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Did AI kill? (was Re: does AI kill?)
Message-ID: <2070020@otter.hple.hp.com>
Date: 18 Jul 88 18:17:32 GMT
References: <16617@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Lines: 21

/ otter:comp.ai / tws@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Thomas Sarver) /  2:02 pm  Jul 15, 1988 /
Thomas Sarver writes:
>The point that everyone is missing is that there is a federal regulation that
>makes certain that no computer has complete decision control over any
>military component.  As the article says, the computer RECOMMENDED that the
>							~~~~~~~~~~~
>blip was an enemy target.  The operator was at fault for not ascertaining the
>computer's reccomendation.

	Perhaps this is also undesirable, given the current state of AI
technology. Even a recommendation amounts to the program having taken some
decision. It seems to me that the proper place for AI (if AI was used) is
in filtering the mass of information that would normally overwhelm a human.
In fact not only filtering but collecting this information and presenting it
in a more amenable form _ based on simple, robust wont-usually-fail 
heuristics. In this way it is clear that AI is offering an advantage - a 
human simply could not take in all the information in its original form and
come to a sensible decision in a reasonable time.
	We don't know yet what actually happened on the Vincennes but the
computer's recommendation could well have swayed the Captain's decision,
psychologically.