Edit this event - Submit similar event - Post this event into another calendar - Delete this event

  Subject:   ACM Allen Newell Award Lecture - "Computers and Trust" - Professor Nancy Leveson, MIT

  Sponsor:   Knowledge Systems Laboratory

  Speaker:   Professor Nancy Leveson, MIT

  Date:   Thursday, May 4, 2000

  Time:   4:30pm - 6:30pm

  Location:   Terman Auditorium [look for it in a campus map]

  Costs:   no charge

  Contact:   Kay Walker - 723.4878

Prof. Nancy Leveson, MIT, is the recipient of the 1999 ACM Allen Newell Award.

The abstract for her lecture follows below:

"Computers and Trust"

"We seem not to trust one another as much as would be desirable.  In lieu of 
trusting each other, are we putting too much trust in our technology?"
                                                 - T.B. Sheridan.

Computers are being introduced into the control of virtually every dangerous 
system, including nuclear weapons, transportation systems (aircraft, 
automobiles, trains), medical devices, and chemical and nuclear power plants.  
Few engineering techniques exist to provide assurance that safety is not being
degraded by the substitution of digital systems for the electromechanical 
designs that have been perfected through decades and sometimes centuries of
experience.  At the same time, nothing is absolutely safe, and computers 
provide important advantages over the human operators, social systems, and
engineered devices they are replacing.

This talk will attempt to examine whether concern is justified.  Are we putting
too much trust in computers?  Will introducing computers to assist or replace
human operators eliminate or reduce the problem of human error?  Are there
limits to the reasonable uses of computer technology?  If so, what do we need 
to do to stretch those limits?

 Event history: Submitted by khwalker on 20-Apr-2000;

Calendus Software
Disclaimer | Email us!