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Engineering Out Human Error
A couple really interesting news articles from a few years ago about how automotive engineers are attempting to target and eliminate human error in order to minimize accidents, traffic and speed limit violations. One article explains:
“In the future, at least every second road traffic accident could be prevented if vehicles are equipped with suitable assistance systems,” … Most accidents result from human error, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Vehicle Initiative has identified eight areas where drivers can be helped by computerised safety systems.
And another article talks about using satellite tracking and control to slow down cars that are speeding. While the life-saving and safety potentials of these technologies is tremendous, you have to start wondering when they are simply going to simply try to re-engineer human error out of humans. This is ultimately, I think, the great danger of the technocratic society that we are living in, that there are no restrictions against eliminating human error. And that what people don’t seem to want to recognise is that human error and human nature have the same roots in who and what we are. To eliminate one is to eliminate both, and that day is fast approaching (if it’s not already past us) where they are going to begin trying in earnest to do so.
August 18th, 2006 at 9:48 am
“It can only be attributable to human error.”
August 18th, 2006 at 11:18 am
This post gave me a mild epiphany in regard to what you mean when you talk about the technocratic state (or, at least what I THINK you mean)… a realization which itself builds off the very recent pod-cast from Alcemical Braindamage about Leviathan and the unconscious. This above-mentioned car-thing seems to remind me of what Zac was getting at when he talked about “unconscious motivation” (if I remember it correctly) — but the motivation (here, and beyond) belonging not to individuals, but to the state itself.
Our greater culture seems to be stuck in a story that pits it directly against nature — a “nature” which doesn’t just include the “natural environment” (as I previously saw it as limited to), but to the very “nature” of life and existence and the universe itself… of which “error” is an integral part of things! My explorations into gnosticism somewhat not-withstanding, it has become hard for me to see the universe itself as the result of anything BUT an error. It is who we are!!
And also, the idea is logistically absurd (in my opinion). its the kinda thing where the whole system is screwed if one car is outside of the network.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:31 am
if you look at the vast number of road hours that humans incur each year you come to the conclusion that humans are virtually error free regarding accidents. i almost any other human activity the error rate is enourmaous comapred to driving a car. to impement “safety” mechanisms of that magnetude isn`t about human safety so much as liability.
if we look at that potential productivity of a driver vs. liability in a claim we start to see the real motive to reduce accidents.
reduction of liability is a major part of management.
if you provide a service and then restrict access to that service then you decrease liability.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
WTF? If we don’t have car accidents we’ll all turn into robots? That’s ridiculous.
August 18th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Well, prove me wrong on this. I would be happy if you would…!
Alistair:
You just blew my mind. Never thought of that before…
August 18th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
This is also connected, I believe:
Cultivating Criminality: The Centrality of Deviance To The Scientific Dictatorship
Will connect that in via a separate post at a later date…
August 18th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Tim,
To me this ties in nicely with your recent article on freedom. Error is often a matter of opinion, so “reducing error” involves much more than that.
Fiona Apple said it best:
http://neimad.blogspot.com/2004/09/im-gonna-fuck-it-up-again.html
August 18th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
One of the better spokesman for the development of scientifical materialism toward what he deems scientific integralism is philosopher Ken Wilber www.kenwilber.com
August 18th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Oh, Farsam Signor(e) Tim Boucher has thoroughly critiqued Herr Wilber. Well, enough playing silly buggers I am off to study some idioms.
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/07/18/ken-wilber-critique-part-1/
August 19th, 2006 at 9:51 am
As usual, there will/would be unintended consequences. Having just driven across country, I have had a recent in-depth experience with driving under all kinds of conditions and various states of sleep-deprivation. One thing I know is that it is sometimes necessary to speed up to avoid an accident (e.g. a vehicle that looks to be unstable or towing something that is unstable; an erratic driver). So, if cars are prevented from speeding, there will be more accidents involving people who could not speed up to avoid a catastrophe.
In addition, there is the problem of people becoming acclimated to the safety mechanisms, who due to lack of practice forget the liminal behaviors that are critical to mantaining the “virtually error-free” driving activity that exists currently. When the mechanical protections malfunction (as they inevitably will) people will lack the necessary skills to take over. We see this time and again with technology.
This is the general trajectory of mechanistic technologies: they arise out of a belief that they will free us or protect us from error, but because they are built from a narrow set of principles they are not robust to all of the things that can happen in the real world. So they fail whenever an “unusual” situation is encountered, but by the time humanity has become dependent upon them, it is too late to fall back on the robust organic capacities of the human.
August 20th, 2006 at 1:22 am
“Inteeligent Vehicle Initiative”, eh? So we are to assume that these hubristic automotive engineers will not be prone to human error when they design a car that wrenches the controls out of the stupid driver’s hands?
If I had a choice between driving an ordinary car and one which thought it knew better than me how to react to traffic situations, you can imagine which one I would choose. I’d take it further. I would refuse to drive the other kind.
As far as I know modern aircraft all have an autopilot facility, but are there any which decide to over-ride manual control leaving the pilot helpless to influence events? I seem to recall a news story where this happened accidentally, and a plane crashed.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Paging John Connor…
A curious quirk of the prevailing scientific philosophy: Progress is seen as possible and desirable. Eliminating human error is seen as progress. But without error and consequence, what drives natural selection? Isn’t that supposed to be the very foundation of progress?
Seems a little HAL9000, but here’s the thing: Error is transformed but never destroyed. This follows the power law of complex systems (commonly encountered as frequency vs. size plotted as a straight line on a logarithmic graph).
Since traffic accidents result from similar complexity to that of the famous sandpile avalanches, a reduction of driver error by a factor of 1000 would reduce the frequency of accidents and increase the severity of accidents by the same amount (picture a pile-up on the Minority Report freeway). Here’s the kicker: While the power law is certain, the specific circumstances by which this will occur are completely unpredictable.
For example, the Subaru Impreza WRX is so well designed that it allows average drivers to handle situations that they couldn’t in an older rally car like a 1974 Ford Escort. The WRX forgives you, smoothes out your mistakes. But when you do crash, when you finally put the WRX in some rare situation that it can’t handle, you will crash spectacularly.
Further, drivers’ willingness to take risks is proportional to the perceived safety (for the occupants) of their vehicles. Airbags, seatbelts, driver-assist and whatnot make us worse drivers. It has been said that road accidents would be practically eliminated if every car had a large metal spike protruding from the steering wheel.
Anyway, long story short: To err is human. We’re supposed to make mistakes in order to learn and evolve. We’re supposed to die doing stupid things so that everyone else gets smarter, and by smarter I mean more robust (slomo gets it). The purpose of evolution is not linear progress, but a dynamic equilibrium, aka homeostasis. The linear progress espoused by the philosophy of science is decidedly unscientific.
Read up on power laws in complex systems; there’s something fascinating about their ubiquity. Follow this with a reading of The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert. When the Machine diminishes human error, machine error is amplified.
By chance, everyone gets the apocalypse they design.
August 20th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Yes, that is exactly one of the points which I am trying to explore. One aspect of scientific philosophy would have us perfectly regulate all things. But to do so would be to destroy the creative and sometimes accidental root of science itself. So a strange type of balance must be struck. What must that balance look like?
Maybe:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Criminality.htm
Also a good Terence McKenna quote which talks to the need to play all sides:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/05/05/mckenna-pronoia/