About Those Cut and Paste Smart Software Recipes
October 15, 2019
DarkCyber noted this write up in Vice: “A Code Glitch May Have Caused Errors In More Than 100 Published Studies.” Okay, no big deal. A few errors.
The write up quotes another source as saying:
“This simple glitch in the original script calls into question the conclusions of a significant number of papers on a wide range of topics in a way that cannot be easily resolved from published information because the operating system is rarely mentioned,” the new paper reads. “Authors who used these scripts should certainly double-check their results and any relevant conclusions using the modified scripts in the [supplementary information].”
So what?
if the code led Williams [expert who made the mistake] to wrongly identify the contents of his sample, chemists trying to recreate the molecule to test as a potential cancer drug would be chasing after the wrong compound
So what?
What unknown, unrealized errors exist within the cut and paste world of smart software?
What about errors in warfighting or crime fighting smart systems?
Don’t know?
No one does.
That’s the issue, isn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2019
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