Computers' Mistakeover

I also read about a computerized dialing system used by the sheriff's office in Wake County, N.C. It was supposed to automatically dial residents who lived near a convenience store where a killing occurred and ask if they'd seen anything out of the ordinary. Instead, the computer called area homes and simply announced that the sheriff was calling, which scared the bejesus out of everyone.

There also were the 3,000 automated calls Ohio's state prison system made to crime victim families, notifying them that inmates who had assaulted or killed their loved ones had been released, which wasn't true. What actually happened was that during a routine computer upgrade, a file listing inmates' names was mistakenly sent to the company handling victim notifications.

Transportation seems particularly prone to computer glitches, judging by how many travel delays get blamed on them. In January, a computer crash at a CSX Transportation dispatch center was cited as the root cause of stalled freight and commuter trains in the District and six other states. And at London's Gatwick airport last winter, airline staffers resorted to using pens to write boarding passes after their computers crashed.

How quaint -- manually operated pens! I told a colleague that story, and he talked about how adamant he is that his young kids not only develop proficiency with pen and paper, but also learn how to use dead-tree dictionaries, so they won't be too dependent on computers and Google.

Pens and dictionaries won't spare us from our escalating dependency on computers, of course. But they can help preserve non-electronic ways of thinking and communicating, which we may need in the future more than we expect. They also can help us remember that we are in charge of computers, not the other way around. Ultimately, their failings are our own, and we have a say over how far we let them into our lives.

As eyebrow-raising as today's computer glitches are, I expect tomorrow's to be more jarring. I got the creeps reading about how Honda is introducing in Europe a new Accord that steers itself using a computerized system. Mounted up front is a radar device to sense cars ahead and maintain a respectable distance, while cameras read white lines on the pavement to keep the car from veering outside its lane.

After two decades of watching computers take over more and more of my life, I doubt I'll be buying a self-steering car anytime soon.

How about you?

Leslie Walker welcomes e-mail at leslie@lesliewalker.com.