Sometimes, robots try too hard, and assume too much

Those of you who travel more than I do (these days, I hardly leave my house!) probably noticed this before, but it’s the first time I’ve run into it.

As I mentioned, we took a quick trip to Memphis a few days back, and while we were there, I looked at my phone and noticed I had an appointment with one of my doctors set for the next day — which was the day we’d be driving back. The time was for right about the time we’d be leaving Memphis. (I knew I had an appointment that week, but I’d thought it was later in the week.)

So I called, and they called me back the next morning as we were about to leave, and reset the appointment for this coming Friday at 9:10. So I entered that into my iPhone.

At least, I think that was the time. I just looked at my calendar, and it says 10:10. (As you can see above, I smudged the doc’s name. Y’all know I usually don’t worry too much about my own privacy in a medical context, but I try to respect that of my physicians’.)

So… I’m left to assume that since I entered the time as 9:10 when I was in the CDT zone, my iPhone automatically “corrected” it when we cross the line back into EDT.

I fixed it earlier on my phone, but it still shows up on my PC as 10.10. (Which is another technical problem.) So now I’ve put in a call to the doctor’s office to make sure.

Anyway, I hadn’t known iOS could be quite that “helpful.” Or that presumptuous…

2 thoughts on “Sometimes, robots try too hard, and assume too much”

  1. Brad Warthen Post author

    OK, the doctor’s office just called me back and said that indeed my appointment IS at 9:10.

    So I remembered it right, in spite of the efforts of my algorithmic assistant. Which proves yet again that I have a mind like a steel trap. Or a steel bar, or a steel door — or something really massive, dense and hard…

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      OK, now this is really insane.

      I opened the calendar item on my PC in order to change the time.

      But it already HAS the correct time. But it still insists that it means Central time.

      This thing is stubborn…

Comments are closed.