From: fsbrn@brl.mil (Ferd S. Brundick)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Date: 5 Jan 93 18:32:02 GMT
Reply-To: fsbrn@brl.mil
Organization: Army Research Laboratory

In article <JMC.93Jan2141039@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
|> I hear my 7 year old son shouting "Stop! Stop!" at his robot.  You
|> might consider shouting at a toy robot a singularly futile exercise.
|> However, the robot, manufactured in China for a Japanese company and
|> sold at Radio Shack, uses voice recognition technology licensed from an
|> American company.
|> 
|> It just isn't very obedient when shouted at.

This ties in with an observation I made yesterday and which I will
gladly share.  A coworker was having trouble because his terminal
suddenly switched to an alternate character set.  Since the person
does not read the VT100 graphics char set, he asked me for help.  To
demonstrate the fact that gibberish was spewing all over his screen,
he proceded to pound on the keyboard with gay abandon.  However, HE
WAS STILL LOGGED IN AT THE TIME!  (excuse the shouting :-)

My question, which is mine, and what it is, too, is this (ahem):

Why do people act so irrationally around terminals and computers when
they (the machines) fail to respond quickly (instantaneously) and correctly?

If the system is slow in responding (I mean seconds, not minutes) people
will start beating on the keyboard.  "If one carriage return won't
work, maybe I should stuff 30 or 40 down its throat."  To me this is
the equivalent of shouting at the machine.  [I should note that for
years another coworker has maintained that you have to curse terminals
in Japanese because that is the only language they understand.]

This is not the same as hitting the TV when the reception is bad
(altho I don't see the logic in these days of solid state devices) or
non-physical acts like shouting.  No one expects their stalled car to
start if they slam the hood or pound on the dash, and they certainly
don't crank the starter repeatedly.  Maybe keyboards should scream
when they are abused to provide some feedback :-)

The other extreme is to simply turn everything off.  "Oh well, it
isn't talking to me so I'll just pull the plug."  Yeah, right.  I
can't get the car in the driveway so I'll just park it here in the
intersection by shutting off the ignition and jumping out.

Whew.  I'm feeling *much* better now.

ObBook: I've started reading Wodehouse's _Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets_
(or something like that, I know it's not spam, spam, spam, spam, baked
beans, spam, spam, spam, and spam).  This is a collection of short
stories that are NOT about Jeeves and Bertie.  I have mixed feelings
about Bertie.  While I basically enjoy the stories, there are times
when I just want to throttle him.  (Like last week when he yelled
"Fire" in the theatre.)  My last Wodehouse outing was with the pig at
Blandings Manor (again, "or whatever").  A nice bunch of loons with no
Bertie.  Alas, this week our local PBS station pre-empted Mahstapiece
Theahtah so I didn't see the episode people have been raving about.

                                        dsw, fferd
                                        Fred S. Brundick
                                        USARL, APG, MD.
                                        <fsbrn@brl.mil>

"You can reprogram the computers, can't you?"
"No trick to it at all.  I brought my screwdriver."