Slashdot Mirror
People Feel Loyalty To Computers
stoobthealien writes "According to BBC News researchers have discovered that people have loyalty to specific computers because of a tendancy to associate "human attributes to them" - and I thought it was just me that speaks to my PC...."
HAL wasnt evil, he just got really paranoid because they gave him a complete set of instructions to carry out the mission in the event that the humans failed and told him to lie about it, which because he was designed to provide accurate information caused the conflict... this is explained in 2010...
On a side note, is it just me or does the computer nerd that figures this out in the movie have something for hal? that long pause and "thank you hal..." at the end was creepy.
I had the same problem with department groups. By contract with the primary customer, the subcontractors were told "no departmental 'ownership' of machines not in offices". That meant specifically no pictures, no knick-knacks, all documents locked up in another room when the worker goes home. No labels on machines.
Two things destroyed this idea;
IT never got out of firefighting mode to impose standards.
Departments and individuals immediately took the attitude "if I'm not here, others can use my machine" as if that would satisfy the contract requirements.
Reasons for why this does not work -- and many machines and people ended up being idle -- were basically;
Without being able to sit down anywhere (possible if IT did make that possible), people stopped trying to use just any machine and focused on one or a small group "in our area".
People would stop working if a specific -- "my machine" mentioned above -- was not available.
Add to this lack of customer interest and management, and this becomes a bit of meat to fight over when other tensions arise.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
To see the implications of this, consider that people on a team--no matter how assembled--tend to regard their teammates as smarter than those not on the team. In light of the social roles of computers, a reasonable question might then be: Would individuals "teamed" with a computer think that the computer is smarter than would computer users not on a team?
In an experiment, individuals were told that they were being teamed with a computer to solve a task. (How do you foster team identity when the team consists of a human and a computer? You declare the pair "The Blue Team," give the human a blue wristband, decorate the computer with a blue border, and place a "Blue Team" label on top. I'm not making this up.) The human member of each team then worked with the computer to solve the problem. Other individuals received the same responses from the computer in solving the task, but were not told they were on a team. Those teamed with the computer rated the computer as more helpful and insightful than those who were not.
Through numerous other experiments, Nass and his colleagues have shown that computer "personality" and other factors can be manipulated to elicit positive responses to computers by their users. (One experiment demonstrated that humans seem to be suckers for computer-generated flattery.) For AI researchers, Nass made the point that users can be encouraged to perceive computers as intelligent through social strategies that have little to do with intelligence.
Those interested in learning more might read The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places in which Nass and Byron Reeves describe 35 experiments.
I read that slot machines on the corners are rigged to win more often, cause they're the most visible. So always play the corner ones cause they got that extra 1-3% favor. :D
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I used to work in the industry, and to a point this is true. Also the machines next to the cashiers, and the ones you see when you first walk in the door.
That doesn't mean the other machines will never hit, or that the "visible" ones always hit. The ones at the bar are typically the worst.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Actually, in Vegas, slot machines that look identical don't have to be. The key is in the PRNG (psuedo random number generator) chip installed in each. They don't have a "memory" of what they did last, but there are some PRNGs that are "looser" and "tigher" over time. Players can't exactly figure out where the looser machines are, however, because it'd take a large number of plays to notice a difference.
You are not born with all the neurons you will ever have. Otherwise, your brain would be the same size when you're born as when you're an adult. This is one HUGE difference between human infants and those of other apes: our young are helpless because if they were born with complete brains, the birthing process would likely kill both child and mother (because we have large brains). It takes many years for your brain to be "finished" (18-20, iirc), after which it begins to (very slowly) die as neurons die and aren't replaced.
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"