We use this reference in the software world all the time.
We use it as a declaration, “Garbage in generated garbage out.”
We use it as a question, “Is this a case of garbage in producing garbage out?”
We use it as a warning, “Let’s be careful not to create a garbage in, garbage out scenario.”
It’s such a helpful concept that we’ve shortened it to an acronym — GIGO.
The purpose of a computer program is to take input and act upon it to produce output. GIGO occurs when regardless of how accurate the program’s logic, decision-making, or transformation function is, the results will be wrong if the input is wrong, tainted, or just plain meaningless.
When the output of our program is unexpected, we sometimes see it immediately — like when the song you’re listening to skips or beeps.
But GIGO can happen stealthily.
You miss it because the output seems right, even though it isn’t. It looks like what we expected or believed to be correct. To debug these issues, we start by throwing out our expectations and beliefs and stepping through the logic with the particular input.
The same is true with human decision-making. Sometimes the problem is the logic itself, but sometimes it’s the input. To figure it out, the first step is to put aside your expectations and beliefs, if ever so briefly.
