Bits'n'Bytes

As heard on CJCD

Episode 52

Pretty much everyone owns a computer nowadays. Lots of folks own more than one. Computers can make life so much easier for a lot of us. They can also make us so mad we can easily conjure up images of what our systems would look like after the 24 inch blade of a chainsaw has ripped through them. Yeah, I thought so - now wipe that grin off your face.

We've been told, for decades now, how computers are going to improve our lives. Things will be so much easier once computers figure out how to do them. So, how is it something that's supposed to make our lives so much easier is able to cause us so much grief?

One thing I learned early on with computers is that a computer is only as smart as the guy who programmed it. Now, it's groups of people. Thousands of people. So, you'd think if a few thousand skilled programmers got together and programmed a computer, it should work right - right?

Unfortunately, not true. Why not? Because we, meaning mankind, aren't at all as smart as we think we are. Not only are we very capable of making mistakes, we also don't know exactly how we work. The brain is, so far, the greatest computer in the world. Think of how much data it processes every minute of every day. And we don't know exactly how it works. We don't completely understand how it remembers some stuff and not other stuff.

We haven't totally figured out how it learns to catch a fly ball or do a somersault. It begins programming itself before we're even born, and continues to self-program every minute of every day for the rest of our lives.

Then, we take this marvelous computer, that we don't fully understand, and try to make a machine that can do everything it can do. There's bound to be mistakes. Unfortunately, for now, we'll have to live with that fact. Until we fully understand how the human brain works, and until someone who figures this out builds a computer based on this new understanding - we'll have to live with those occasional images of chainsaws.

I’m Computer Dave, thanks for your time.