Why Can’t a Human Be More Like a Machine?
I finally got a new car last week, and I got one that had a navigation system. It seemed like a good , maybe necessary, idea — I am, to put it politely, “directionally challenged.”
And this navigation system is great. I talk to it (“find ATM”) and it talks to me (“Would you like directions?”), I respond “Yes,” and it gives them to me, telling me when to turn, left or right, giving me plenty of warning ahead of time (“In a quarter of a mile, you will turn left,”, “Take your next left.”)
But here’s the interesting part. If I don’t do what it says (either I messed up, or I think I know a better route), it doesn’t respond to me with irritation. It doesn’t say “why didn’t you listen to me?” It keeps its voice calm, and as soon as it can, starts giving helpful directions again. If it doesn’t know what I did at all, it will ask if I would like to change the route. It’s patient.
How often does that happen with a driver and a human naviagator in a car? Wouldn’t it be nice if it did? Think of the last time you missed the turn on the Eisenhower or the Beltway or I-95. What did your human navigator say to you?
Mmm. Here’s a new idea: In addition to saying that we need to become like little children to enter the kingdom of God, we might say that we need to become more like navigation systems.
The Volokh Conspiracy sometime ago pointed out that if you try to get directions from Boston, MA to London, UK in Google Maps, the first results are promising, but then one comes across step 5:
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From Boston, MA to London, UK
3,734 mi (about 29 days 6 hours)
1. Head south on Congress St toward Quaker Ln 0.1 mi
2. Turn left at Milk St 0.3 mi
3 mins
3. Continue on Central St 0.1 mi
4. Turn right at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
5. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean
Entering France 3,462 mi
29 days 0 hours
6. Slight right at E05 0.5 mi
2 mins
7. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto E05/Pont Vauban 0.1 mi
8. Turn right at E05/Quai Colbert
Continue to follow E05 5.7 mi
10 mins
9. Take the exit onto A29/E44 toward Amiens
Partial toll road 27.8 mi
23 mins
10. Take the exit toward Dieppe/Amiens/Calais/A151/Rouen
Toll road
etc.
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It should be noted that the google map helpfully shows the best route for swimming the Atlantic.
I tried to get directions from New York to Heaven. Google sends me to some place near Cincinnati. Perhaps it’s a case of “you can’t get there from here.”
Hell, on the other hand, is easy to get to from New York. Go to Hell’s Kitchen at 10th Avenue and 46th Street, go down a manhole cover and spiral down, always keeping to the left, as the instructions in Dante’s Inferno make clear.
Rather than the array of earth-orbiting satellites that makes possible the Global Positioning System in Kathy’s car, the other GPS (the God Positioning System) works solely on LYN technology (i.e., Love Your Neighbor).
The machine’s personna reminds me of something out of Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov , in particular, the Bradbury story “I Sing the Body Electric”..
Perhaps, in some not too distant future, we’ll be able to dial in personality types. The possibilites seem endless.