cav551:
muckles:
[…]I would agree that those are examples of good training and selection procedures, however there is one inescapable truth which canot be denied as long as man’s fundamental orifice points downwards: there is no maybe in the operation of a computer. It is a binary sytem - either on or off. It has to make a yes/no decision. Man can make a decision based on maybe and choose more than two options.
It is more than that. Computers can make complex decisions - that’s what led to the “expert systems” craze in the 1980s.
But man can decide whether to decide, or whether to desist. He can postpone decisions or explore the implications of multiple choices. He can decide what weight to give to criteria, and when. He often has an innate sense of his confidence in a decision and proceed more cautiously if it is not high. He may easily notice circumstantial or contextual oddities without being pre-primed for them, and having only been primed for the usual case. He is free to decide that an exception to the normal rules apply, and to provide a justification. Two men may differ on their decisions, and they usually have some insight as to the nature of the difference, so the one who in hindsight usually gets them right will be given more responsibility and his reasoning communicated. So many ways in which humans differ from computers.