🚀 go-pugleaf

wex@sitting.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) writes:
>I've been looking at this issue with an eye to implementing some groupware
>systems.  One of the things I've been finding in talking with potential
>users is that people really resent having something authoritarian-seeming
>made explicit in the computer, even when they deal with it in real life.
>
>For example, Subject 2 was observed to have this interaction:
>
>	Subject 2: "What are we doing about the XXX contract?"
>	Peer:  "I've set up a meeting at 2.  You'll get the agenda as soon
>		as the secretary finishes typing it up."
>	Subject 2: "OK."
>
>However, Subject 2 explicitly rejected the idea of having an electronic
>calendar system which would allow his Peer to schedule this meeting
>automatically, with him being able to remove it if he didn't like it.  That,
>he said, was "too authoritarian."
>
>Upon having it pointed out that the computer would simply be implementing
>the now-informal procedure, Subject 2 ventured the opinion that "having the
>interaction on the computer [made] it more authoritarian."
>
>Comments?
>
>--Alan Wexelblat

Sure, since the computer has become the modern paradigm of the gears of
industry that grind the soul of man small, and the garbage in, gospel out
syndrome is in full flower, and nearly every adult has had the experience
of trying to get reasonable behavior out of an errant computer billing
system, the word from the machine, even when it is the same word, is going
to be perceived as much more tinged with authoritarianism.

It's about time for Asimov's three laws to be seriously considered for
inclusion in any computer hardware/software design.  Too many existing
designs ignore "first, cause no harm to any human being".

From the perspective of groupware, this almost requires an "any human
can veto any machine action, subject to human review and confirmation
of the machine's choice" to make the system seem acceptable to the user;
there should _always_ be an effective route of appeal, one that protects
the user until the appeal has been carried through.

The tough part, as I noted in my previous posting, is keeping those appeals
from stopping all progress.

Kent, the man from xanth.
<xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>