Why we can’t always rely on technology

They can save lives: they can destroy lives.

Just recently we have seen the dangers of unquestioning reliance on computers. Some thoroughly honest postmasters have only recently been released from jail after they were wrongly accused of stealing funds from their Post Offices.

Their misfortune was reliance on wrongly configured computers which they believed were going to make their jobs easier and safer. We can only hope that they will all receive the justice they deserve, even though no apologies and financial recompense will ever compensate for the trauma they endured.

Then there are the so-called ‘smart motorways’ which have caused the deaths of some unfortunate motorists whose machines let them down.

I think I’m right in saying that this particular scheme relied on the application of ‘artificial intelligence’. Way back in the 1940s, sciencefiction writer Isaac

Asimov devised the

First Law of Robotics which stated that ‘A robot shall not harm a human or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm’.

Developers of AI would do well to keep this in mind.

We can only hope they receive justice, even though no apologies and financial recompense will ever compensate for the trauma

I wonder if the consultants hired by the council at enormous expense to reconfigure Ashford town centre used

AI. It’s difficult to imagine that they used simple, tried-and-tested human intelligence. An outdoor cinema screen and dozens more cafes are not likely to draw visitors and put Ashford on the map. Nor would the proposal for a more open view of the church.

Leaders of the council say a theatre would not work for the town; too expensive etcetera. The building is large enough to house a theatre as part of an exciting arts centre with gallery space for local artists and craftspeople. Let’s make Ashford a town people will want to visit, not a place to avoid while travelling to somewhere else.