Saturday, September 13, 2008

Probe Into How Google Mix-up Caused $1 Billion Run On United

by Mike Harvey - September 12th, 2008 - Times (London)

To many, the episode has been a reminder that computer programs, no matter how sophisticated, can be a poor substitute for human beings.

The comedy of errors began with just one reader who went to the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s website and viewed a 2002 article on United Airlines’ bankruptcy.

That single visit in the early hours of Sunday morning, a period of low traffic, apparently bumped it into a "Popular Stories" in the business section.

At 1:37AM, an electronic Google program swept through the paper’s website for new stories and spotted the link.

Google says its program scanned the piece and, seeing there was no 2002 dateline, indexed the article for inclusion on its news pages.

Three minutes and two seconds later, Google News readers started viewing the story on the Sun Sentinel’s Web site.

I know it is not good to laugh when people have lost millions of dollars, but I simply cannot understand how people get lured in to trusting computers without qualification. It IS funny. As a computer consultant I know how great computers can be. As a computer consultant I also repeat constantly the mantra, "Computers are stupid." They are. A lot of people learned that lesson here, and they will be paying for it for quite a while.

Computers are great. Computers are stupid. Both are true. It will cost you if you forget either of these truths in this world of the 21st century.


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