Automation Makes Us Dumb - WSJ

Automation Makes Us Dumb - WSJ:

So, it would seem, the sequel to being yet more dumber, is Dumber to.,,

In this article (and associated books, it appears) Nicolas Carr offers up the argument (and some evidence) that computers and automation are making us dumber.

One example is that pilots can lose their edge for flight if they let the auto-pilot (no, not Airplane 1,2, 2.5, 33 1/3) do virtually all of the driving.

It seems that psycho-motor skills are best practiced occasionally if you have a plane load of people and you might actually need to manually fly that bird to safety. Especially since the times when the actual pilot will need to take over the controls area likely to be under unusual or pending disasters circumstances.

Here's an interesting counter perspective from Carlos Alvarenga (via LinkedIn). He questions several aspects of the points posed by Carr.

Interesting discussion and counter points. The direct tie in to imagination and innovation is rather weak.

But definitely the focus of new systems and automation should be on the human side, not the machine side.

In the meantime, pilots should practices doing some of the actual flying to make sure that they can effortlessly do it if/when then need to.

'via Blog this'

The Supreme Court's "alice decision" is having a marked impact on software patents, NPEs and litigation  Alice corporation owned four patents for electronic methods and computer programs for financial-trading systems on which trades between two parties who are to exchange payment are settled by a third party in ways that reduce settlement risk.  (wikipedia.org)  CLS Bank International began to use similar technology in 2002 and Alice notified CLS of its likely infringement.  In 2007, CLS sued Alice seeking a declaratory judgement that Alice's patents were invalid.  The Court, DC District Court, declared each of Alice's four patents invalid because the clains concerned abstract ideas which are not eligible for patent protection.  The court followed Bilski v Kappos 2010 precedent.

Alice appealed and the US Appeals Court for the Federal District  reversed the lower court in 2012.  This year (2014) the Supreme Court reversed the Appeals Court, citing the patents were invalid because the claims were drawn to an abstract idea and implementing those claims on a computer was not enough to transform that idea to a patentable invention.  Hence, this assessment
(http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/detail.aspx?g=dadf4dce-0f75-45dc-9339-dacb0f7bb465)