[gurps] Failing autopilots and RVO

[Zan Lynx]

Hal wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gurpsnet-l-bounces at sjgames.com 
>> [mailto:gurpsnet-l-bounces at sjgames.com] On Behalf Of Troy Guffey
>> Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 7:14 AM
>> To: The GURPSnet mailing list
>> Subject: [gurps] Failing autopilots and RVO
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> From: "Knapp" <magick.crow at gmail.com>
>>
>>> In what way is a routine operation different from an emergency one?
>>> Plane companies have records of what goes wrong and how often. They 
>>> can program for this just as well as anything else. On top 
>> of that the 
>>> computer can react faster and will never make a mistake with good 
>>> programming. Also the computer might have data that a pilot 
>> could lot 
>>> get quickly enough in an emergency like air pressure over the wing, 
>>> material stresses and other subtle factors of flight. Did 
>> you look at 
>>> just how much ground info that robot spy plane can gather? 
>> I am sure 
>>> it could be programmed to use that for a very nice ditching. This 
>>> plane could take off, fly, land and taxi 10 years ago!
>>
>> Even if an autopilot *has* been programmed to respond to all 
>> previous emergencies, vehicles will still find new ways to go 
>> wrong that require genuine *creativity* to handle.  There is 
>> no possible way to program *every* possible emergency.
>>
>> obGURPS:  Does the Routine Vehicle Operation program include 
>> things like "if both wings are blown off and the fuel is on 
>> fire, and the megaton nuke missile armed but failed to release"?  :-)
> 
> One way of looking at this is simply this...
> 
> If the robotic's program value is listed as being a 17, it is programmed to
> handle just about everything that is possible - except the truly unexpected.
> When rolling to see if one's "skill is up to the task", one is really saying
> that the circumstances involved at that precise moment are either within
> parameters of the programmer's abilities, or the circumstances are outside
> of what the programmers provided.
> 
> Thus, a skill 16 program will generally handle 98.1% of the problems that
> may arise.  It just happens that the remaining 1.9% of the times, the
> program just can't handle anything that was envisioned by the programmers -
> and the "in case of event not being covered, try best likely course of
> action" just can't handle it.
> 
> It appears that most of the programs in GURPS 4e tend to cluster around the
> skill value of 12 or so - which means that ths software tends to be able to
> handle roughly 74% of the situations.  When you roll dice against the
> computer's skill - you're essentially asking "Are the problems involved
> inside, or outside the programs parameters".  When you roll a 13+, the
> answer is "Yes, the problem lies outside the program's parameters".  When
> you roll a 17 or 18, you're saying in effect "this is outside of the
> programmer's expertise or, the program itself contained a bug in it that did
> not execute the intent of the programmers, but followed the wrong track"
> 
> Just one way of looking at it.  ;)

And as I recall, "routine duties" get a +4 to skill.  So that skill 12 
airline autopilot program will hardly ever have a problem as long as 
nothing unexpected happens.

The program running a fighter or bomber in "hard" ground-follow at 150 
feet and 500 mph had better have at least skill 16. :)

I don't know if that's a "routine" task for a fighter autopilot or not. 
  In my opinion, it's a trivial problem for a computer, **assuming** its 
terrain database, inertial or GPS locater and/or its radar is reporting 
accurate information.

When things go wrong is when it gets non-routine of course.  If the 
radar reports an obstacle but the location on the map shows nothing, 
trust it or not?  It might be a jamming artifact, or the map might be 
wrong, but the computer has only a quarter second to decide.

One other thing about computer software that might come into play is 
that it is predictable.  This shows up in real life, in the tactics game 
players adopt to defeat boss enemies in MMOs, for example.  It shows up 
in science fiction often as well.  An example of that is in Michael Z. 
Williamson's "Freehold" novel, the Freehold military uses their 
knowledge about the autopilot of a UN Guardian fighter to force it into 
a known evasion tactic, which is when the *second* SAM hits it.  I 
believe I also remember it in one of the "Bolo" novels, where a more 
advanced Bolo successfully predicts the responses of an older model Bolo 
in order to take it down.

In GURPS terms, I could see that as a skill bonus against a particular 
known version of computer software.  A Transhuman Space AI running 
ground defenses vs. attack drones should be able to get at least a +4 if 
it has had a chance to reverse engineer their attack program.  A human 
could do as well of course, but it would take a lot longer.
-- 
Zan Lynx
zlynx at acm.org

"Knowledge is Power.  Power Corrupts.  Study Hard.  Be Evil."