Computer Programming - Discovering Perfection in Imperfection

Computers have been known by many as a device that takes in a set of data as input which it goes ahead to process electronically to produce results which takes the form of information for use by people. I just thought about how the computer is able to carry all of that against the backdrop of the inherent flaws people have. I mean, people by default are imperfect, and so they are always prone to mistakes, failures, disappointments and so on and on. However, we have come to rely on computers albeit created by humans that are imperfect and we accept their output as usable information by which we are able to make important and many times life defining decisions.

But one truth that I came to tell myself is that the computer was designed by the same imperfect humans prone to mistakes. There is even the maxim that says 'Garbage in - Garbage out', meaning that the computer is only as accurate as the programmer programming the computer. This means that if the programmer is imperfect, then the system will be inherently flawed, at least to an extent. We are not talking about failures that comes from systemic degradation or from loss of power. After all, they say that nothing lasts forever. I am talking about functional errors, errors that comes because of a failure of the computer to compute or carry a particular task it has been instructed to.

I came up with this realization when I thought about how far humans are willing to go when it comes to the reliance of humans on computers to carry out day to day tasks. In the previous years, it was not uncommon for people to carry out a lot of tasks manually, but nowadays, the computer is taking over a lot of functions. Even taking over some jobs meant for people and so on. For example, we are now in an era of human development called the Artificial Intelligence Era. In this era, machines are built not just to be programmed to carry out specific tasks, but they are actually trained to learn and make rational conclusions about various human concepts including empathy and other characteristics attributed only to people.

For example, soon, computers will be playing chess games and involving in debates like it is normal. And the thing is that this system has been so perfected that the margin for error is very minimal. Humans have been able to discover perfection even thought they themselves are inherently imperfect.