Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 55.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2024-06-26 05:31:36+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: no magic

Recently I began a volunteer position in a small group of advisors to a
local medical practice. I welcomed the chance to give back a little to a
very good group of doctors, nurses and admin staff. One topic of
discussion has been how best to answer patients' questions, given the
wide variety of people of different ages, conditions, cultural and
national backgrounds, languages and so on. I'd say, a degree of 
diversity of which university lecturers have little idea.

All information is, as one would expect, going online. But the
assumption seems to be the majority one: that all one has to do is
digitise and upload. (I exaggerate a bit, but not much.) Given that most
of the patients access this stuff on their phones, what would you expect
to be the result? Not good, I suspect. It is as if online were magic: 
upload stuff and the problem is solved. Look how much information 
is there at the tap of a finger!

Another instance. In the U.K., you may know, we have the Post
Office Scandal. Many, many managers of branches were charged with theft
and/or mismanagement of funds, some went to prison and so on. The fault
turned out to be a major problem in the IT system provided under
contract by Fujitsu. You can read about this elsewhere. My point comes
from a higher-up manager in Royal Mail, who when asked why he never
looked to the IT system, said something like this: 'I didn't because
computers don't make mistakes.' Again, the magic hypothesis.

As some here will already know, human and other living kinds have been
nearly exterminated several times already because of errors in the
world-wide network of nuclear weaponry, at least some of these from
oversights in the design of software. (See Brian Cantwell Smith, "The
Limits of Correctness", ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society 14-15.1-4
(1985), 18-26; rpt. "The Limits of Correctness in Computers", in Deborah
G. Johnson and Helen Nissenbaum, eds. Computers, Ethics & Social Values.
456-469. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995.) Again the magic.

Is there not work to do? But by whom? Who, unaffected by income derived 
from business that turns on blissful unawareness of the common problem 
illustrated here, understands the problem described by Cantwell Smith AND 
is inclined to do something about it? 

Comments?

Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews;  Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk


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