Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • The Degradation of the Turing Test

    The Turing Test from Alan Turing was proposed as a test of an intelligent system. Could a human determine if the other party in a conversation was a machine? This was an interesting way of imagining how powerful a computer might grow and the types of answers it might give to a human. Interestingly enough Turing didn’t argue about the correctness of the answers, just that they appeared to be from a human.

    In some sense, I wonder how many people would have been fooled by the GPT-3 bot on Reddit. It posted comments for a week to a variety of threads. You can look through the posts by the “thegentlemetre” user, but this one caught my eye, and as I read it, I was surprised how much this looks like things I’ve seen posted on the Internet.

    Is this AI bot intelligent? I don’t know, but I do think that the quality of comments and posts on all sorts of threads and articles seems to go down over the years. Maybe it’s humans that are becoming worse at online communications rather than computers are getting smarter. Really, I think both things are happening.

    AI/ML systems are getting better at mimicking what humans do, and I suspect that in many cases, especially in small samples, they can fool many people, perhaps most. That’s disconcerting, especially as I already feel many people are a worse version of themselves online, without feedback and social cues directly available. Having bots add to the volume of poor communications and comments doesn’t seem useful to society in general.

    While I do think that AI systems can dramatically help us with mundane tasks and tedious work, I also think there can be problems if they become rigid in their actions, without allowing for some flexibility. Humans have discretion, and while they might not use it fairly, or even in ways that their organizations approve of, but they are flexible. Seeing these posts, I wonder if the AIs can learn to be flexible as well. I think they can be.

    Steve Jones

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  • Bean Counting to Burnout

    I was listening to a story about healthcare in the US recently. This was an interview with Vivian Lee, the author of The Long Fix, which proposes some ways to improve the system under which I live. I thought it was a good interview, and I am looking forward to reading the book.

    There was one stretch in the interview that caught my ear, and that was on the struggles of many modern doctors in the US to avoid burnout. A part of the reason for this is the amount of paperwork they must complete, which takes away from many of the reasons they got into practicing medicine.

    I know that many people in IT professions work long hours. We have lots of deadlines to meet, on call responsibilities, and the pressures to ensure that our systems work well for customers and clients. We don’t necessarily have the upside that doctors do, so working harder doesn’t necessarily lead to more compensation.

    On top of the work we do, there seem to be no shortage of meetings in many companies, though I don’t hear too many complaints about paperwork. However, with the move to more OpEx and cloud services, I wonder if we will have to deal with more paperwork in the future, more reporting, and more accountability for the financial side of our departments.

    I would like to think that we will continue to work with technology most of the time, and I hope that after this pandemic that most managers will cut down on meetings and start to trust more people to get work done without oversight. We certainly have enough of a risk of burnout without the added burden of unnecessary meetings and paperwork.

    Steve Jones

  • The App Compatibility Promise

    I was listening to one of the Ignite keynotes, and I heard an executive say something about “if your app doesn’t work, we’ll help you fix it at no additional cost, or fix Windows.” I had stop and rewind and check, and then go look around. Sure enough, there is an App Assure promise for Windows 10 and apps.

    This isn’t just for commercial software, but it lists custom line-of-business apps, third party apps, and more. Now, this doesn’t appear to be for everyone. The eligibility for at last the FastTrack portion of this is 150 or more licenses of Windows, Office, etc. However, it is a guarantee that they will help you.

    There’s also a note that there isn’t a requirement for ISVs building Windows 10 apps. To me, that means there’s no good reason why more companies don’t take advantage of it. I do think, however, that there’s a missing component here.

    Big parts of the Ignite keynotes, and in Microsoft’s marketing and messaging, is about data. That should mean that SQL Server and CosmosDB ought to be included in this promise. If there are regressions or bad plans, I’d hope that Microsoft would help them fix things. Or maybe promise that the compatibility mode would insulate apps.

    I know that execution plans regress, sometimes on the same version, and guaranteeing performance or a plan across versions isn’t likely possible. However, I do think that Microsoft could provide more guarantees, perhaps with some caveats that if they need you to change code you will.

    We all know that we need to test, test, test to ensure we aren’t introducing regressions or other issues. This isn’t a panacea, but it also isn’t a project. It’s an ongoing part of building any software, including database software. Many of us do this, but it becomes harder and more complex for ISVs that often deal with many versions. However, we pay lots of money, and I’d expect that they at least are supporting patches to existing software. I think that’s part of an informal contract that they ought to believe in.

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  • How Important is a Conference?

    The PASS Virtual Summit is coming up next month, and Andy has a few thoughts on how to get your employer to send you to the virtual conference. As someone that has been through this many times, Andy has good advice, and his thoughts are the types of things I’ve done in the past at various jobs I’ve had. Having a good reason why was important before I started speaking.

    Once I started speaking, I often made a deal with my boss that I’d cover some parts of the event and they’d cover others. We both made a shared investment in my career, which made sense to me. I often used Andy’s line, which is what I was thinking about today.

    This is important to me.

    That’s a good phrase to use. Usually I do a good amount of self learning, I ask lots of questions, scan message boards, and I teach myself various things. However, a conference is a chance to help me think. I get to consider new technologies, I get to talk with others about how they solve problems, or more often, what problems new technologies can cause me. I get the chance to grow in a wider way than I can in the office.

    That’s important to me, and it’s been valuable to my employers. I think that’s the case for some conference attendees, but I do think that some drive and desire are important if you get more out of a conference than a couple days off. Let your boss know you have that drive, and show it off. Remind them of the things you do to invest in yourself.

    Can you put into words why a conference is important to you? Why it’s valuable for you personally, what you get, and does the chance to go to an event make you more likely to value your current position? If so, then maybe ask to go. There are some valuable packages to help you learn. If not, that’s fine, but maybe ask yourself why not. What don’t you get out of the Summit, or any other conference.

    Maybe the main thing to think about today is what is important to you when it comes to benefits and requests of your employer?

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