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Programming IT Technology

Autonomic Code not About Replacing Humans 27

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the that's-what-they-told-the-guys-they-fired dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IT professionals can automate IT management tasks by delegating them to the system, and can plan the degree of automation that is right for them and how manual managers and autonomic managers work together. This article discusses the role of the humans, or lack there of, in autonomic systems. The article claims that isn't about replacing people with machines." How have other readers experienced the use of autonomic code both good and bad?
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Autonomic Code not About Replacing Humans More

Autonomic Code not About Replacing Humans

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  • Um what? (Score:2, Informative)

    by ViperG ( 673659 )
    I'm pretty sure the article is talking about software that manages managers, and delegates employes and that sorta thing. Like a windows application. A computer running the IT department sorta way.

    I don't know where autonomicthingymagingy code came from.
  • Most anything a machine can do can be done by throwing enough humans at it. An oversimplification probably, but there are things you don't want humans doing, there is always something else a human can be doing. Plus there isn't that pesky ~18 year dev time for a human being. In old days they used to have a person devoted to operanting an elevator, now there isn't one. Somehow I don't think that was about replacing humans either.
    • In the context of labour, "replacing" Humans is the same as "liberating" them. The entire existence of things like art and science are the result of replacing farmers and hunters by using superior tools.

      Why waste labour on work, when you can expend that labour on paintings or theories of stuff?

      • Because not everyone can paint, and not everyone can formulate theories. But everyone needs something to do, and a reasonf or getting up in the morning.

        Othewise, you'll have total anarchy and the destruction of civilization, because basically, there was nothing else better to do.

        That is, if the machines don't figure this out first and kill us beforehand.

        • If "machines" will be of any intelligence this will be the first thing they figure out. Probably they won't bother with henocide though - just seize control over critical resources and humans will quickly degenerate into stone age population numbers and consumption levels (e.g. surviving humans will have to survive on natural resources without access to cool neat stuff like oil , ore , minerals - or anything else non-renewable and/or of tangible value )
    • In old days they used to have a person devoted to operanting an elevator, now there isn't one.

      A small quibble, and without taking away your point, but at least some high-end department stores here in Japan do have an employee in the elevator to greet people, help with carts, walkers or strollers, and, yes, press the floor buttons. I guess it's the same as gas stations with manual service, or supermarkets with people packing your bags. It's stuff you can easily do yourself (and usually do too), but the "huma
    • In old days they used to have a person devoted to operanting an elevator, now there isn't one.

      I was in a department store just yesterday that had an elevator operator.

      Given the age of the elevator, I'm guessing it's cheaper to hire someone to push buttons than worry about lawsuits of people not understanding how to use the (very very old) elevator and hurting themselves.
      • hmm what exactly was this elavator like.

        one thing you see sometimes (often for goods use)are elevators with manually operated concertina style doors. I think theese make it much easier to get a wide opening for the entry than the sliding doors seen on passenger lifts. The trouble with them is if you don't shut both doors very carefully the lift will end up stuck at whatever level you left it at .

  • Maybe it's just me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CounterZer0 ( 199086 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:28PM (#14017162) Homepage
    But aren't most IT departments drastically understaffed as it is? We rely heavily on automated processes to handle the more labor intensive and repetitive checks and operations we carry out on a daily basis. It frees up our staff for project planning, design, and troubleshooting stuff that's failed. Would *you* want to manually check 5000 systems for operational status every 10 minutes? I'd have to hire hundreds of people to handle that kind of load, so in a sense, sure it is 'replacing humans', but give me a break.
    We could all ride in rickshaw's too, pulled by humans, instead of buying 'auto-mobiles' to automate carrying 4-8 people or what have you...should we be worried about cars stealing jobs of rickshaw pullers?

  • Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:33PM (#14017190)
    Why do we assume that if a computer takes over a task that a human once did, that human has been "replaced?" Really what has been "replaced" is the acting agent. It is sort of sad that we equate someone's job with their actually person.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:2)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      I believe, Monsieur Sartre, that the meaning of "replace" is limited to the specific context (task, job, whatever) in question. Not suggesting that the person ceases to exist the moment one hits :wq on the very small shell script that "replaces" him.

  • This is awesome! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cyphercell ( 843398 )
    Frankly, when you are in charge of a project you live and die by the software and hardware decisions you make. When you choose good software and hardware you are indispensible and loved. If you choose really bad hardware and software for your application you are slowly tortured in a chaotic development cycle where you have wedged the project into a hacked system by buying something that does not suit your needs, you were not the right person for the job. It seems to me like servers just got smart, the deci
  • I work at a small software company, with international contracts, consisting of 4 people. I am head ot tech support and the only active programmer. The more I can automate, the lighter my workload gets, and the less likely I am to end up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle. Am I the exception to the rule?
    • The more I can automate, the lighter my workload gets, and the less likely I am to end up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle.
      Hmm... Are there more or less people (as a percentage of population) in clock towers with rifles today or 100 years ago?

      Do computers save lives?

      • Hmm... Are there more or less people (as a percentage of population) in clock towers with rifles today or 100 years ago?

        Hmm... I bet the population has risen faster than the number of clock towers... Number of rifles likely as risen too...

        Do computers save lives?

        As much as I would like to believe so, I tend to believe their net effect is either nill or slightly negative... Did postal workers "go postal" before we had computer-driven mass mailing?

  • A virus outbreak. We have a system here which is designed to seek out and handle these sorts of things, and just this afternoon we released its controls so it would be able to nip a huge outbreak in the bud.

    So far, it seems to be working quite well. Skynet has managed to regain control of most of our systems... Pardon me, just a sec, one of my coworkers is on the other line...

    (Yeah, Jim, I'm in the middle of an interview here... What? What do you mean you're locked out of your terminal. That can't be right.
  • It has been designed purely To Serve Man.

  • Isn't the purpose of technology to increase productivity?

    I've developed processes that automate really mundane work such as copying data from tapes. Originally, a person had to sit next to the tape loading machine to ensure that the tape was copied correctly and they had to input the correct destination folder for each of the seven tapes in the tape loading magazine.

    So I created a Python script that reads each tape header and copies each automatically and it e-mails you when the magazine needs to be chan

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