IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 84

Taxonomy
Following are a number of situations
where distributed intelligence can
lead to problems.
■ The provider is not directly con-
nected to the user. (See ini-
tial example.)
■ The data required is subsumed
in an enthymeme, and the pro-
vider, being unaware of this, pro-
vides incorrect or incomplete
data, or wrongly assumes that
the data provided will be correct
and unchanging for the duration
of its use.
■ The provider's authority had not
been timely revoked or limited.
■ The provider is illicit.
* Hacking
* Conflating
■ The provider is not sufficiently
aware of the context of the user.
■ The user fails to properly instruct
the provider.
■ The provider misunderstands
the user (possibly deliberately).

Conclusions
Whenever the user of information is
not permanently connected to the
provider of information, there exists
the possibility of one or more of
the following:
■ Misunderstood information,
■ Incomplete information,
■ Inaccurate information,
■ Inappropriate information,
■ Information that subsequently
changes independently of initial
expectations.
And it becomes incumbent upon
the provider and user to examine to
examine each of these possibilities
as a part of a joint effort to minimize
or avoid errors.

Examples Based on Taxonomy
Enthymemes frequently hide behind
"Oh, everyone knows that ... ." En-
thymemes cause problems when a
provider or user becomes involved
who does not share them ...

84

frequently, a person from another
culture or background.
My home telephone number is
877-5678. Billy Graham's organiza-
tion has a toll-free number which
they display on TV as 877-567-8989.
The enthymeme here is that "every-
one knows you have to dial a '1'
before a toll-free number." The con-
sequence is, of course, that if some-
one in an area code that includes (as,
obviously, does mine) an exchange
877, doesn't know this, and calls Billy
Graham, it will ring a local number
in that area code. There is a similar
situation with one of the numbers for
Disney World, and I have disappoint-
ed a number of small children who
didn't know about dialing the "1."
I am an ESOL (English for Speak-
ers of Other Languages) tutor. One
day one of my students asked me
why new seat belts were not legal
in New Jersey. After a bit of prob-
ing, I discovered that the student
had just come over a bridge into
New Jersey, and had seen a sign that
said "Seat Belts Must Be Worn." The
enthymeme here is on the part of
the sign-writer, who did not antici-
pate the multiple meanings of the
word "Worn." (A better sign, I think,
would be "Seat Belts Must Be In Use"
(but, clearly, not "... Used"!). And try
to explain why "I am delighted" is
not the same as "I am turned off"!

to 80°; when the couple were away,
he kept the house at 80° in the win-
ter and 40° in the summer, thus run-
ning up a prodigious electric bill!

Illicit Provider - Hacking
Instances of computers being hack-
ed, either for amusement, or to steal
data, are legion. However, the com-
puters that are embedded in other
devices have also been hacked.

Automobiles
Over time the control of an automo-
bile has been taken away from the
driver and moved into the automo-
bile itself. My father's Model A had
a "choke" lever on the steering col-
umn, but the "choke" control has
vanished as carburetors became
more sophisticated. Brakes now
have an anti-skid feature that pre-
vents controlled skidding. In some
newer cars all of the automobile's
functions are processed through an
on-board computer, and there are
instances of "hackers" being able
to take over the control of another
vehicle, thus (e.g.) preventing it from
braking! Consider, then, cars that
proceed with no human driver, and
which have their controls hacked.
Even if a passenger were able to
take control, it is not clear that there
would be sufficient time [1].
There was recently a demonstra-
tion that a 2014 Jeep Cherokee could
be completely taken over by an out-
side agency, such that the driver had
no control whatsoever. For now, own-
ers of vehicles with the Uconnect fea-
ture [2] should install the update as
soon as possible [2]. The patch must
be manually installed via USB stick or
by a dealership mechanic. The flaw
is said to affect several 2013-2014
models of Dodge Ram; the 2013-
2014 Dodge Viper; the 2014 Jeep
Cherokee, Jeep Grand Cherokee,
and Dodge Durango; the 2015 Jeep
Cherokee and Jeep Grand Cherokee;
and 2015 Chrysler 200s.

Failure to Revoke
A man went through an unpleasant
divorce that ended up with his ex-
wife keeping what had been their
house and living in it with her new
lover. The house had an advanced
thermostat, which was controllable
by an app which had remained on
the man's smart-phone. When he
discovered this, his revenge took the
form of "tinkering" with the thermo-
stat: in the wintertime, he dropped
the house temperature to 40° at
night when the couple were in bed,
while in the summertime he raised it
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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