Dave Farber
2018-08-09 04:25:48 UTC
Subject: Re: [IP] Re Voting Software a to true comment on our field
Date: August 9, 2018 13:19:25 JST
What Randall Munroe seems to be missing (the last panel and the popup are a bit unclear about what position he is taking) is that airplane engineers and elevator designers went through *decades* of learning how to make safe systems. See, for example, the history of the Airbus A320. Manufacturers of voting software don't have those years of experience, and in fact they have been highly resistant to suggestions from experts in software reliability and consistently reluctant to submit to outside testing (such as what the FAA does for airplanes, and other bodies do for elevator designs).
Furthermore, when an airplane or elevator fails, the failure is obvious. When a voting system fails, the failure can be incredibly subtle--and in fact, the beneficiaries of the failure can be astoundingly resistant to suggestions that the results might not be accurate (see 2000, 2004, and 2016 U.S. presidential elections).
So this is another case where reasoning by analogy breaks down completely. --
Orchestra retrospectively extremely satisfied with symphony [No. 1] as
result of barrel of free beer.
-- Gustav Mahler, post-premiere letter to Arnold Berliner
-------------------------------------------Date: August 9, 2018 13:19:25 JST
What Randall Munroe seems to be missing (the last panel and the popup are a bit unclear about what position he is taking) is that airplane engineers and elevator designers went through *decades* of learning how to make safe systems. See, for example, the history of the Airbus A320. Manufacturers of voting software don't have those years of experience, and in fact they have been highly resistant to suggestions from experts in software reliability and consistently reluctant to submit to outside testing (such as what the FAA does for airplanes, and other bodies do for elevator designs).
Furthermore, when an airplane or elevator fails, the failure is obvious. When a voting system fails, the failure can be incredibly subtle--and in fact, the beneficiaries of the failure can be astoundingly resistant to suggestions that the results might not be accurate (see 2000, 2004, and 2016 U.S. presidential elections).
So this is another case where reasoning by analogy breaks down completely. --
Orchestra retrospectively extremely satisfied with symphony [No. 1] as
result of barrel of free beer.
-- Gustav Mahler, post-premiere letter to Arnold Berliner
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