doodledee

It has been interesting to follow the story of those two planes that crashed into each other over in Europe. It turns out that as the planes approached each other, their respective Collision Avoidance Systems kicked in and began telling each pilot what to do in order to avoid crashing into the other plane. The computers do this by communicating with each other and working out which plane should go down and which plane should go up. Once they have it figured out, computer voices calmly tell the pilots what to do.

For some reason, the pilot of one plane refused to believe the computer and instead listened to the [tragically] incorrect instructions coming from the ground controller. As a result, both planes descended and eventually collided.

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to me that people still don't trust computers -- after all, my mom still refuses to use a cash machine -- but in this case, how can you not?