The problem of automation: Inappropriate feedback and interaction, not overautomation

As automation increasingly takes its place in industry, especially high-risk industry, it is often blamed for causing harm and increasing the chance of human error when failures occur. It is proposed that the problem is not the presence of automation, but rather its inappropriate design. The problem is that the operations are performed appropriately under normal conditions, but there is inadequate feedback and interaction with the humans who must control the overall conduct of the task. When the situations exceed the capabilities of the automatic equipment, then the inadequate feedback leads to difficulties for the human controllers. The problem is that the automation is at an intermediate level of intelligence, powerful enough to take over control that which used to be done by people, but not powerful enough to handle all abnormalities. Moreover, its level of intelligence is insufficient to provide the continual, appropriate feedback that occurs naturally among human operators. To solve this problem, the automation should either be made less intelligent or more so, but the current level is quite inappropriate. The overall message is that it is possible to reduce error through appropriate design considerations

Phedre and Oenone

Paper by Donald Norman Levi

Some Observations Concerning Plato\u27s Lysis

Discussion of the authenticity and relative dating of the dialogue followed by examination of the several definitions of philos . The Good is the ultimate goal that remains in view to Plato, no matter what else must be abandoned as dialectically unacceptable

The Design of Future Things: Cautious Cars:

I will discuss the increasing intrusion of intelligent devices into the automobile with both expected benefits and unexpected dangers. The aviation industry knows a lot about the dangers of overautomation. The Human Factors and Control industry has long studied problems of operator control of automated equipment, including supervisory control. The issues here, however, are different: most studies of automation and intelligent devices look at industrial settings, with well-trained operators who do the same operations over and over again. In the automobile, we have ill-trained operators, with little understanding (and little interest in gaining understanding), who may have to react in seconds. Full automation, along with full autonomy probably is inevitable, and it will provide significant safety benefits. But partial autonomy, partial automation can be confusing, frustrating and dangerous. For these in-between states, I propose that we do not allow partial solutions, but rather use the technology to augment our abilities in a symbiotic fashion. I propose an approach I call “natural interaction,” where people and machines interact and communicate in ways that are natural, use environmental cues, and provide continual awareness of the other’s activities without annoyance. This requires development of a science of natural interaction, using appropriate visual, haptic, and auditory fields that map gracefully between machine and environmental states and human perception