The AI Dilemma

   CHAPTER 7   

Favor Loosely Coupled Systems

It began at four o’clock in the morning on March 28, 1979, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. The nuclear reactor was operating at nearly full power when the accident in Unit 2 happened. A secondary cooling circuit malfunctioned and affected the temperature of the primary coolant. This sharp rise in temperature made the reactor shut down automatically. In the second it took to deactivate the reactor’s system, a relief valve failed to close. The nuclear core suffered severe damage, but operators couldn’t diagnose or deal with the unexpected shutdown of the reactor in the heat of the moment. Inadequate control room instrumentation and insufficient emergency response training proved to be root causes ...