Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We seem to be far more tolerant of technical failures.

When I was a kid (we played baseball in the streets and things like that), I often heard the excuse, “The computer is down.”

That excuse brought all sorts of grievous vexation that excuses usually bring. It was recognized as an excuse for failure. We didn’t seem to tolerate excuses much in that day of street baseball. I guess skinned knees, torn clothing, and all made us less tolerant.

We tolerate more these days. ChatGPT is available for free use. Well, some days I see a message about the thing being too busy and I should come back later. I guess the computer is down or something.

And we all seem to accept that excuse. “Good enough” is one of the accepted excuses of our age. Hey, it’s free, so what do I expect?

I find it interesting that back in the 1980s various AI technologies were ready to be tried, but were held back. People wouldn’t accept something that was right 90% of the time (when human experts were right only 80% of the time). People would be outraged at those 10% incorrect answers.

Today? It’s sort of funny to see the silly mistakes the software makes. The computer is up, well, sort of, but limping along and making comical errors. That’s okay today.