The social impacts of the cyber revolution are
beyond the brief of a columnist specializing in weedy parking lots and
aldermanic antics. But, like the current Republican gubernatorial candidate, I
have opinions about many things beyond my field of endeavor. One is that
computer systems, more specifically our reliance on them, is making us stupid.
It’s a truism by now, as we are reminded when standing in line at the store
when the computers go down and clerks are reduced to making change by hand.
Heart-rending.
Would that the consequences our of dependence were always so
minor. William Langewiesche, a superb reporter who is
himself a pilot, has published the most recent installment in the annals of
airliner disasters in the current issue of Vanity Fair. In anatomizing
the crash into the Pacific off Brazil of Air
France Flight 447 five years ago, Langewiesche
addresses the unsettling question: Do pilots who have flown only
automated planes know what to do when automation fails, as such systems must?
Few readers are likely to find all 12,300 words
engaging, but anyone who flies ought to read them anyway.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2014.
