[cctalk] Re: Inline Serial Device?

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Nov 12, 2022, at 1:08 PM, Anders Nelson via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> I bet NN/AI would be helpful with data recovery - if we can model certain
> common failure modes with those old drive heads we could infer what the
> data should have been...

NN maybe, I need to understand those better.  I see they are now a building 
block for OCR.

AI, not so clear.  In my view, AI is a catch-all term for "software whose 
properties are unknown and probably unknowable".  A computer, including one 
that executes AI softwware, is a math processing engine, so in principle its 
behavior is fully defined by its design and by the software in it.  But when 
you do AI in which "learning" is part of the scheme, the resulting behavior is 
in fact unknown and undefined.  

For some applications that may be ok.  OCR doesn't suffer materially from 
occasional random errors, since it has errors anyway from the nature of its 
input.  But, for example, I shudder at the notion of AI in safety-critical 
applications (like autopilots for aircraft, or worse yet for cars).  A safety 
critical application implemented in a manner that precludes the existence of a 
specification is a fundanmentally insane notion.

        paul