The Real AI Threat?

Fri Dec 11 17:54:34 UTC 2020

Exactly, it’s going to be bad code on the power grid resetting generator sync devices - not “AI” that eats us.
—L.B.

Lady Benjamin PD Cannon, ASCE
6x7 Networks & 6x7 Telecom, LLC 
CEO 
ben at 6by7.net <mailto:ben at 6by7.net>
"The only fully end-to-end encrypted global telecommunications company in the world.”
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> On Dec 11, 2020, at 9:26 AM, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net> wrote:
> 
> Valdis,
> 
> Thank you for a prime example of the REAL threat of software eating the world.  (Well that, and "rm -f *" typed by the wrong users at the wrong place in an increasingly global file heirarchy).  Meanwhile, folks are busy watching AI scenarios on tv.
> 
> Miles
> 
> Valdis Klētnieks wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Dec 2020 18:56:04 -0500, Max Harmony via NANOG said:
>>> Programs have never done what you *want* them to do, only what you =
>>> *tell* them to do.
>> Amen to that - there was the time many moons ago when we launched a copy of a
>> vendor's network monitoring system, and told it to auto-discover the network.
>> It found all the on-campus subnets and most of the machines, and didnt seem to
>> be doing anything else, so we all headed home.
>> 
>> Come in the next morning, and discover that our 56k leased line to Nysernet
>> (yes, *that* many moons ago) was clogged with the monitoring system trying to
>> do SNMP probes against a significant fraction of the Internet in the Northeast.
>> 
>> Things apparently went particularly pear-shaped when it discovered the MIT/Boston
>> routing swamp...
>> 
>> And of course, we *told* it "discover the network", when we *meant* "discover
>> the network in this one /16.".  Fortunately, it didn't support "discover the
>> network and perform security scans on machines" - but I'm sure there's at least
>> one security-scanning package out there that makes this same whoopsie all too
>> easy to do, 3+ decades later...
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
> 
> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. 
> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. 
> In our lab, theory and practice are combined: 
> nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown

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