by Donald A. Norman
The fourth chapter of The Design of Future Things is about machines making decisions and taking control back from their human users. Newer technologies have more and more "automation" options, that take the difficult or boring tasks away from the human user and are completed by the machine. Norman argues that technology is mostly under human control - while things are automated to make life easier, the human user always has control over the operations, including stopping, starting, and making changes to the task the machine is doing. But in today's world, automation has taken over tasks that previously required human input, which can be a dangerous thing. Intelligent devices are useful and effective when they have well specified tasks, or in a setting where the people that control and use the devices are specialized and educated. But when these intelligent devices are used in the home or the car, and with average citizens, it can be dangerous. The average human doesn't know how their car works, or how it might make decisions about how far to be away from the car in front of it. Because of this, when the automation fails, the user may not notice or know what to do without the machine's help, causing an accident.
Norman argues that automation of our future machines must be all or nothing; either the task is completely manual, or it is fully automated and reliable. Even though partial automation has reduced accidents and made our lives easier, the transition from automation to manual control causes more dangerous accidents than before. When a system is usually automated, the user will not be paying as close attention, and will not have good situation awareness. Then, when there's a problem, they're distracted and can't react quick enough. Norman believes that full automation is coming, but the road from manual to fully automated systems will be hard traveling.
In a way, I agree with Norman's view of automated systems - when you get used to how something is just "done" for you by the machine, you aren't watching for errors or accidents that could occur. When I'm cooking something in the microwave, I don't watch to make sure that it is cooking correctly, and have my hand on the power cord ready to unplug it if there's a fire. Instead, I trust the automated cooking, and I might walk away for a few minutes. Then, if something catches on fire, I won't be in the room, and it could cause my whole house to burn down. But because we trust the automation so much, the average user isn't going to sit and watch the machine the whole time. Although I think full automation is scary (trusting a car completely to drive you somewhere), it isn't implausible. I just think that the best users for those kind of machines are those that are born and grow up with them. It will be hard for current drivers to trust a new machine, but those users that grew up using them will be the most comfortable with the new technology, which applies to really any kind of new technology.
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