Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (106049)	3/26/2005 12:12:14 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 793689

This may be one reason to keep human beings in the position of judge a hundred years from now, instead of going down the HAL 2010 route. I agree. I don't see AI taking over human beings position of judge. But human beings are making a very good case to accellerate development of AI so that it can take over<ggg>.

To: greenspirit who wrote (106049)	3/26/2005 12:36:34 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793689

Would you look to alter the process, or stick by it no matter what the results? The short answer is "no." But the long answer constrains the short answer. Any mature process includes one or more levels of appeal and a program evaluation subprocess. The appeals subprocess would catch errors or hanky panky in the process to assure due process aka justice for the individual. If the appeals concludes that the treatment in a given case was kosher, then it was. The program evaluation subprocess reviews anomalies that result, analyzes them to determine if the process, itself, is faulty, and proposes changes to the process if needed. Terri's case received due process, period. That was determined by exhausting review by a whole bunch of appeals levels. When a case stands after all appeals, it is said to have received due process by definition. But there remains some question of whether the process/law, itself, is just or if it needs some modification. The Florida legislature is the appropriate program evaluation body, not the state or federal judiciary. This case has been around for a while and the plaintiffs and the public have raised enough questions about about the justice of the Florida process. The legislature heard those questions and had ample time to change the law before Terri fell into dire straights but it didn't. Just the other day the Florida legislature took up change to the law to require written directives before allowing patients to die but did not pass it. Therefore, just as the judicial appeals process determined that this case had due process, the legislature determined that no changes of the process is required. That's democracy and justice in our system of government. Maybe the legislature will do further program evaluation in the future as those questions continue to be asked and make some changes, but they would not be in time for Terri. In the case of your poor performer, the appeals process would look at whether the process was designed to allow for illness as an excuse and, if so, reverse his poor rating if the reviewer failed to take that rule into account. If the process did not allow for illness, the program evaluators would note this anomaly and analyze whether the program should be changed to so that such employees are retained. The program would either be changed and the employee retain his job or not depending on whether management wanted to keep or fire such employees. You don't make an exception for this one employee without changing the program so that the reason for the exception is incorporated for all other similarly situated employees. THAT would constitute injustice. If an exception is made in Terri's case, then all other cases for people who are similarly situated incur a civil right to that same consideration. (That's why I've been nagging at people who are focused on just Terri's case to tell me how they would changed the Florida law rather than just what they would do about Terri's anomaly.)

To: greenspirit who wrote (106049)	3/31/2005 10:46:40 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793689

SUBMARINES: New American Tactics for Defeating Diesel Boats strategypage.com March 30, 2005: The U.S. Navy believes it has developed new tactics, and technologies, that can defeat the quiet, and deadly, diesel-electric submarines it may have to fight off the coasts of hostile nations. China, North Korea and Iran all have such subs, and have made threatening noises towards the U.S. Navy. The new approach uses air dropped sensors, equipped with computers and radio communications, to make a combat zone less suitable for diesel-electric subs to hide in. These boats, while quiet, do make some noise. The new sensors, similar to the familiar sonobuoys, would silently collect information, do a lot of the processing (to separate the passing whales from passing subs), and then quickly (and in a hard-to-detect fashion) transmit the information to American ships and aircraft. Details of the new sensors are, naturally, secret, and will remain that way for as long as possible. The new devices are far more capable than the sonobuoys that aircraft (like the P-3) and helicopters have been dropping for decades. The more information potential enemies have on the new sensors, the more likely they can find ways to make the sensors less effective, or not effective at all. The new sensors will be tested against diesel-electric subs belonging to allies. The Australians have been very active in these exercises, and an even more advanced Swedish sub, with an AIP (Air Independent Propulsion), has been leased, along with its crew, for training exercises. China, North Korea and Iran have, for the most part, older and noisier diesel-electric subs. But even these boats are quieter than most nuclear subs (which have to run pumps at all times to circulate cooler water around the hot nuclear reactors). We may never know for sure how well this new approach will work, just as we never got to find out how the Cold War era tactics for fighting Russian nuclear, and diesel-electric subs, would have worked. But there were plenty of situations where American subs, and ships and aircraft got to actually stalk Russian subs, doing everything they would do in wartime, except for launching weapons against the Russian boats. Those exercises won’t be repeated as often, if at all, with the new tactics. You don’t want to drop those new sensors somewhere where you can’t get them back. Then again, who knows.