The Forbin Project in Practice: One Household Appliance at a Time
22.01.10
Although it's not Dr. Forbin's Colossus (one of the first AI systems to attempt to destroy the world on film --note the "on film" please), it is quite irritating, and the result might eventually be the same: We recently replaced our oven - why? the computer went out on it. We recently replaced our washer -- it was quite difficult to find a new washer without a computer in it, a computer that would be exposed to warm, wet vibrational conditions every day. We just disconnected the waterbath from our microcalorimeter - why? the on-board computer that controls the $ 3K water bath went out and kept shutting the whole $ 90K system down (what? a computer in a warm, wet environment? why would it have a problem?). It would have been nicer to be doing calorimetric experiments rather than troubleshooting this un-needed on-board computer problem for the past couple of days.
When I replaced my car, why did I get rid of the old one? the computer went out in it. When we performed microgravity experiments on NASA's Vomit Comet with over $200,000 of equipment in the most equipment harsh environment I personally have yet worked, what was the only piece of equipment that had a problem? I wonder, could it be: the computer? It actually fried itself and blew a circuit breaker on the plane, in flight - thankfully they isolate the equipment power from the plane's power.
Source: ScienceBlogs (blog)