[Quadratic]

Damn it, I've only now realised I've been spelling it Sybil, but it's spelt Sibyl (or SIBYL to be extra cool). Pack it up guys, all arguments for Sibyl are now invalid .
(And long post is loooooooong).

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Well, it's not like they're all geniuses. A lot of work has to be done, and there are only so many A-rankers.

You're right. But what I expect from a Sibyl-like system is the standards being gradually increased by culling the (potential) criminals, so that would free up resources to be allocated elsewhere.
I know it's a cold attitude, but again, that's not what I want to live in, but this is how I see hard choices would be made.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And I wonder why the manager got his job? Did Sybil overestimate him, or did it just decide the job wasn't that critical and could be given to that asshole?

Probably because it doesn't have a personality checking parameter, and the manager is still "managing" it to the point where operations are still...satisfactory.
It doesn't seem like Sibyl knows things like the factory environment (in terms of actual personalities within), or the history surrounding it.
If it turns out Sibyl is somehow self-aware, able to account for asshole/non-asshole personality traits, or able to determine potential scapegoats, then a lot of my arguments will probably become invalid, I fear .

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I disagree. I do think it brings in some new issues. We don't have supercomputers giving these sorts of wide-ranging, massively life-impacting recommendations to businesses, law enforcement agencies, etc... in real life.

Ok, I'll give you that point, but that's seems to be a matter of trusting a single machine, as opposed to a bunch of "sub-systems" (ie. real human beings) who each have their own set of individual bias...like a game of Chinese whispers.
Still, a single machine making life-impacting recommendations versus a bit of biased individuals making life-impacting recommendations, obviously the latter increases your chances of survival in the real world, but that's exploiting loop-holes in the human network system.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

It also seems to me that the Sibyl system has seriously undermined the very concept of medical confidentiality. Again, I see no reason why psychiatric health should be viewed as any less private a matter than one's physiological health. And yet such privacy doesn't seem to exist in the world of Psycho-Pass.

Excluding latent criminals, they are given the opportunities to get mental help (as detected by the street drones, or whatever they're called, and/or hue assessments).
Instead of hiding away unstability, the system is promotes maintaining healthy mental state for everyone.
The only arguments here are the latent criminals issue, that people should be given the right to remain unstable (and/or get worst) or the possibility of mind controlling agents.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Joe Schmoe picking up a weapon and killing somebody with ease with it.

Bows and arrows actually take skill and training to be effective lethal weapons.
Now, I'm not saying that the world's most elite gun-users aren't highly skilled and trained marksmen. They are, and they deserve credit for that.
But guns don't have that same "high bar" for lethal use that the classic bow and arrow does.
Virtually anybody can pick up a gun and kill somebody with it on their very first attempt at using it. Such a thing is far less likely with a bow and arrow.
The benefit of this, for the bow and arrow, is that in the midst of getting that necessary archery training, people learn the importance of safe and proper use of the bow and arrow. But you can purchase and effectively use a gun without ever getting training like this. That makes guns an uniquely problematic weapon from a societal perspective, imo.
Now, I'm not saying that guns should be outright outlawed, but I do think that America probably would benefit from more effective gun regulations.

As for close-range weapons (like knifes and swords) they at least require people to be gutsy enough to get within arm's reach of their intended target.

Someone invents a portable flesh cutting laser...anyway, that wasn't the point of the argument .
The point was that weapons were designed to be weapons, so it's purpose as a 'good' thing is twisting it's original intent.

Sibyl...well, at this point in time, I believe was created to help aid people, not created as a weapon.
The closet analogy I can come up with is the internet itself. The original intent twisted by the people making issues like cyber-bullying, digital piracy ("You wouldn't download a car!"...er, what?), etc.
Has the internet been censored, yet? Well, it is only now starting to.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

No there isn't. There's clearly more weight for following the recommendations. If Akane does everything "by the book" (i.e. by Sibyl) nobody is going to question that. She is going to at least get questioned if she goes against a Sibyl recommendation though.

Again, doing things the Sibyl way is the path of least resistance, so the Sibyl way carries an inherent edge over other alternatives. It does undermine the likelihood of humans practicing good personal judgement.

She extended the situation for another 3-4 minutes and risked the life of another Enforcer. Plently of things can happen in those 3-4 minutes.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure employing latent criminals undermines the practicing good personal judgement.
But again, that's not Sibyl recommending 'please fight fire with fire', that's people going 'hey, let's risk the lives of "dogs" instead'.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Somewhat. But at the end of the day, hiring decisions are placed in the hands of people, who (at least as far as I know) operate without supercomputers telling them "Hire this guy" or "Hire this girl".

Also, I think you underestimate the role that old factors like nepotism and "who you know" plays. Also, specific grades aren't always as important as simply having the pertinent degree(s).

We would probably agree that society has gone too far in using the Post-Secondary education system as a massive glorified screening process for employers. There's some jobs that nowadays require degrees that, frankly, you shouldn't need degrees in order to get hired for those jobs.

Nonetheless, a lot of jobs really do require the sort of learning that is probably best gained from an University or College setting, so I don't think that the system is entirely unfair or broken. It just needs to be tweaked, and injected with what I'm tempted to call common sense.

I also think that school grades are a reasonably good measurement of intelligence plus work ethic, of inherent skill plus effort. I think it does a decent job of balancing these values, and giving most people at least some chance (effort is all about choice; average intelligence plus impeccable effort will usually lead to a decent life).

Masaoka: "You know how to use a Dominator, right?"
Akane: "I-I did receive training on it, more or less..."
Supercomputer did not allocate the job to Akane on the spot. She chose her profession and got training prior to her first official shift.
I'm speculating the training was done with people, so they could still reject her if she wasn't meeting their expectations (and if I'm wrong, you'll get a cookie).

But of course, Sibyl's judgement hasn't been proven wrong just yet:
Friend A: "The best I could do was C-rank scores across the board."
Friend B: "What's the problem? You're good at blue-collar work."

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I don't have a problem with that. Desperate times often call for desperate measures. I accept that.

Should the world of Psycho-Pass have some eye-opening historical background that gave rise to it (i.e. a truly desperate situation that lead to it), then that will change my perspective of it to be sure. But I haven't seen any such evidence of that yet.

Right, that was my hypothetical situation in our world.
As for Psycho-Pass's world, they probably did it because they saw an opportunity to make the world a better place. Technically, we don't know if the world really is worst or not.
We're watching it from the police's side so we're purposely shoved into the dark side of society, but:
Ep 2: Was meant to be a quiet night.
Ep 3: "Back in the days when we didn't have cymatic scans, these sorts of incidents weren't that uncommon".
So, it sounds like crime has decreased.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

And you know what? This hits home personally for me. A couple weeks ago I was driving to work in a nasty rainstorm. Partly due to that (and construction workers not being active in the bad weather) I missed the fact that I was driving through a Construction Zone. I ended up breaking the speed limit for a construction area, but still going below what the speed limit would normally be. I received a ticket for that, but the police officer lowered it after I explained my case to him. Would that had happened if a Sibyl system had told him "Give that driver the standard penalty for driving over the speed limit in a construction zone"? Personally, I doubt it.

This is part of the reason why I want police officers to act on their own personal judgement, taking each case in full context, and not just going along with what some uncaring machine tells them to do.

I'm glad you didn't get fined, but unfortunately, my city has deployed cameras so you automatically get fined for speeding and/or accidently drive in bus-only streets (well, only in some parts of the city).
An argument could be made that the bigger picture is that the officer could have been allocated to solving a more serious crime elsewhere.

Originally Posted by MarkS00N

What is judgement?
Base on your post, I assume what you mean judgement is same with what I call as recommendation...
For me, Judgement is the finishing act, that the gun shot the victims without anyone trigger it...
As long as the gun needs human to trigger it, then I still think it as only recommendation...

I'm pretty sure it was purposely meant to have that double meaning.
The ones who completely have complete faith in the system takes its follows its exact words as it speaks.
But again, that's the individual's, or the entire social culture, idea to take it as "the word of god" and follow it immediately.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I don't think there's a manual override. Go back to the opening scene of Ep1, when Shinya was channelling Spike Spiegel in a one-man assault on an office tower. Spike, er, I mean Shinya, was confronted by what seemed to be a bioroid, and when he attempted shoot it with his Dominator, he cursed under his breath because the gun wouldn't work. He had to fight the bioroid hand-to-hand, possibly with the aim of raising the danger rating high enough for him to unlock the Dominator's lethal mode. It took quite a heavy beating before Shinya could fire the weapon.

I watched it again, and it seems the guy's helmet was blocking the Dominator from scanning its brain. When the guy fell out of the window, the helmet when sparking (ie. broken) so the Dominator scanned him and the shot could be made.

As for the manual override, what was the answer to why the hacker didn't get "enforced" lethally despite a higher reading than ep 1's guy? It was higher, right?
Maybe there is a manual override, and Shinya's listening to Akane's words in ep 1/2 (justice over duty)?
Or was it because the hacker actually had no killing intent himself (ie. he needed the robots to kill on his behalf), so Sibyl saw no lethal threat from him?