Automatics, watering systems, AGS systems, anything taking humans out of the loop.

[Mike90250]

My watering system failed today, in 15 minutes, and may have ruined a 800ah NiFe cell with plain water.

I'd been monitoring it closely for 2 hours, and things "were" going well, so I turned away for 15 minutes to shuffle fuel from diesel storage tank to day tank, and when I turned back, one of the 40 watering caps had chosen then, to fail and flood a battery cell. Electrolyte all over. There was 3 gallons in the watering tank, about half gallon left when I caught it.

I've seen AGS systems crank the generator till the starter catches fire, and also run the engine dry on oil. I hate automatic stuff, or maybe it hates me.

In the last month, I've had the eyesight "lane assist" system in my 2019 subaru, try to seer me in to a lane occupied by a car ( it only watches the lane markings not cars ) and then the collision avoidance braking system interpreted a motorcycle cutting in front of me in traffic at 70mph, as a pedestrian and slammed on the "auto" brakes, much to the surprise of the car behind me. And the manual states that in 90% of my driving conditions, I must manually turn these systems off, just like I have to disable the Rear Collision braking system when towing a trailer. Of course the car wants these systems ON all the time and re-enables them constantly. The joys of 98% correct AI systems - it's the 2% of the time that sucks.
(rant off)

[J.P.M.]

My watering system failed today, in 15 minutes, and may have ruined a 800ah NiFe cell with plain water.

I'd been monitoring it closely for 2 hours, and things "were" going well, so I turned away for 15 minutes to shuffle fuel from diesel storage tank to day tank, and when I turned back, one of the 40 watering caps had chosen then, to fail and flood a battery cell. Electrolyte all over. There was 3 gallons in the watering tank, about half gallon left when I caught it.

I've seen AGS systems crank the generator till the starter catches fire, and also run the engine dry on oil. I hate automatic stuff, or maybe it hates me.

In the last month, I've had the eyesight "lane assist" system in my 2019 subaru, try to seer me in to a lane occupied by a car ( it only watches the lane markings not cars ) and then the collision avoidance braking system interpreted a motorcycle cutting in front of me in traffic at 70mph, as a pedestrian and slammed on the "auto" brakes, much to the surprise of the car behind me. And the manual states that in 90% of my driving conditions, I must manually turn these systems off, just like I have to disable the Rear Collision braking system when towing a trailer. Of course the car wants these systems ON all the time and re-enables them constantly. The joys of 98% correct AI systems - it's the 2% of the time that sucks.
(rant off)

Mike: Thank you. I always feel better when someone rants about something in ways I agree with.

I'd add that the more we get systems to do stuff for us, the more we succumb to laziness with the slow and insidious but probably unavoidable loss of the ability to do stuff ourselves (we forget, or never learn). Sooner or later, the process makes us ignorant to the point we can't do the stuff necessary to function in a society if the help stuff craps out.

I've noticed folks on their mobile devices are often looking at a screen while walking (driving ?) rather than where they're going or even being aware of their surroundings.
A couple of examples:

I and others at my gym are regularly walked into by folks who are "texting while walking".

Or, I was at the airport waiting for the light to cross a busy road to the parking lot. The "walk" voice prompt somehow malfunctioned and said "walk" on a green light for oncoming traffic. Most of the dumb SOB palm zombies simply started crossing, never looking up from their screens. Shouts/Hollers from the more sentient brought most of them back to the present.

My wife was in downtown Seattle recently and noticed similar behavior on the part of most of the palm zombies doing much the same thing - obeying the creepy robotic sounding command given at most crossings to walk, and doing so in crowd zombie like conformance without looking up from a screen.

I suppose one unintended consequence of the spineless relinquishing of personal responsibility might be an improvement in the gene pool.

Rant mode off.

[azdave]

In this day and age, a freeway driver should be better prepared than anytime in previous history to know exactly where they are going and when an exit is approaching. I swear, I see twice as many cars today as ten years ago, diving across five lanes of traffic at the last possible second to make their exit. GPS unit have not made some drivers better prepared, they have made them more likely to not pay attention to the road. Don't get me started on self-driving features. My newest car is a 2006 and that is fine by me.

[bcroe]

I am well into my second million miles, and cars here average 300,000 miles and
counting. But I have become quite nervous about going out in traffic any more,
with the total lack of responsible driving I see. I simply refuse to go out in marginal
conditions anymore, when all my extra margin for braking and other defensive
actions are very limited. And, there are constant wrecks. Am so tired of oncoming
texters riding the double yellow on curves, the last big grey truck was the Sheriff!
Bruce Roe

[Ampster]

Don't get me started on self-driving features. My newest car is a 2006 and that is fine by me.

In 2002, I had a voice activated car that could take me almost anywhere I wanted. Then she went off to college.LOL

Since 2016 I have actually observed some of the safety benefits of modest self driving features. I drive back and forth on the Interstate fro Northern California to Southern California probably 10 times a year. Your mileage may vary.

[J.P.M.]

This thread digression about A.I. and how it may not be all it's cracked up to be reminds me of the story about the guy who had an arm amputated due to an accident and subsequently had an experimental and robotic prosthetic arm and human like hand fitted that was voice activated and so it responded to voice commands such as "open the door", shake hands, etc.

All went well in the early stages so the guy continued to experiment and train his new arm. It went so well, in fact, that he went to his local bar to celebrate and continue to train his new arm. After a few beers, as happens, he went to the mens' room. He told the arm to "get it out", " ........", "shake it off", etc. All went well. The arm worked great. All went well. So well in fact that the guy thought about it and said (to himself) "Ah, what the hell" and he told the arm to do something not printable here. Unfortunately, a few unforeseen/unthought of bugs on word interpretation/definition still needed to be worked out. What happened next is not printable but the jist of it is the guy lost his unit when the arm got confused by a command involving the word "jerk". The story goes further downhill from there as the guy, in his shock, anger and helplessness, vocalizes some actions and epithets the reader will need to figure independently, and the arm complies as best as it can with two commands in particular, with the result that his now detached unit winds up in both his two inputs, first in his corn shooter and then his pie hole which means he cannot tell the robot arm to stop in way the robot can understand, so it doesn't. He died of suffocation.

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