It's not meaningless. It would be more appropriate to compare it to a human-designed insurance algorithm that will refuse to offer a discount for extenuating circumstances. That's not so much an analogy as it is a reimplemented example of the same philosophy in practice.
The meaningful distinction is that a human can be persuaded to extend the deadline, at least in theory. A bot cannot be persuaded to do anything, and if a deadline passes an action is triggered like a dead man's switch. In one scenario, a human needs to maintain the decision to uphold that deadline without bias every single time it comes into question. In the other, they only have to do it once: when the bot is initially designed.
They're different things entirely. Arguing that they're not is like arguing that it's easy to maintain a diet or exercise regimen because you just have to uphold a New Year's resolution for a week. This has important ramifications for a security disclosure deadline, because it (theoretically) reduces bias. There are other elements of a disclosure that can still elicit bias, but at least the deadline time itself will not be one of them.
The meaningful distinction is that a human can be persuaded to extend the deadline, at least in theory. A bot cannot be persuaded to do anything, and if a deadline passes an action is triggered like a dead man's switch. In one scenario, a human needs to maintain the decision to uphold that deadline without bias every single time it comes into question. In the other, they only have to do it once: when the bot is initially designed.
They're different things entirely. Arguing that they're not is like arguing that it's easy to maintain a diet or exercise regimen because you just have to uphold a New Year's resolution for a week. This has important ramifications for a security disclosure deadline, because it (theoretically) reduces bias. There are other elements of a disclosure that can still elicit bias, but at least the deadline time itself will not be one of them.