Computers are taking over the kinds of knowledge work long considered the preserve of well-educated, well-trained professionals.
Luci Gutiérrez
[From article]
Worrisome evidence suggests that our own intelligence is withering as
we become more dependent on the artificial variety. Rather than lifting
us up, smart software seems to be dumbing us down.
It has been a
slow process. The first wave of automation rolled through U.S. industry
after World War II, when manufacturers began installing electronically
controlled equipment in their plants. [. . .] The new
technology would be ennobling.
[. . .]
More often than not, the new machines were leaving workers with
drabber, less demanding jobs. An automated milling machine, for example,
didn’t transform the metalworker into a more creative artisan; it
turned him into a pusher of buttons.
[. . .]
Computers are taking over the kinds of knowledge work long considered
the preserve of well-educated, well-trained professionals: Pilots rely
on computers to fly planes; doctors consult them in diagnosing ailments;
architects use them to design buildings.
[. . .]
“Flying skills decay quite rapidly towards the fringes of ‘tolerable’
performance without relatively frequent practice,” Mr. Ebbatson
concluded. But computers now handle most flight operations between
takeoff and touchdown—so “frequent practice” is exactly what pilots are
not getting.
[. . .]
In other words, our skills get sharper only through practice, when we
use them regularly to overcome different sorts of difficult challenges.
The
goal of modern software, by contrast, is to ease our way through such
challenges. Arduous, painstaking work is exactly what programmers are
most eager to automate—after all, that is where the immediate efficiency
gains tend to lie. In other words, a fundamental tension ripples
between the interests of the people doing the automation and the
interests of the people doing the work.
[. . .]
The programs incorporate valuable checklists and alerts, but they also
make medicine more routinized and formulaic—and distance doctors from
their patients.
[. . .]
A professor from Harvard Medical School wrote in a journal article that
when doctors become ‘screen-driven,’ following a computer’s prompts
rather than ‘the patient’s narrative thread,’ their thinking can become
constricted. In the worst cases, they may miss important diagnostic
signals.
Getty Images
Medical software, they write, is no “replacement for basic history-taking, examination skills, and critical thinking.”
[. . .]
When software takes over, manual skills wane.
[. . .]
When system designers begin a project, they first consider the
capabilities of computers, with an eye toward delegating as much of the
work as possible to the software. The human operator is assigned
whatever is left over, which usually consists of relatively passive
chores such as entering data, following templates and monitoring
displays.
This philosophy traps people in a vicious cycle of
de-skilling. By isolating them from hard work, it dulls their skills and
increases the odds that they will make mistakes. When those mistakes
happen, designers respond by seeking to further restrict people’s
responsibilities—spurring a new round of de-skilling.
[. . .]
Even the smartest software lacks the common sense, ingenuity and
verve of the skilled professional. In cockpits, offices or examination
rooms, human experts remain indispensable. Their insight, ingenuity and
intuition, honed through hard work and seasoned real-world judgment,
can’t be replicated by algorithms or robots.
If we let our own
skills fade by relying too much on automation, we are going to render
ourselves less capable, less resilient and more subservient to our
machines. We will create a world more fit for robots than for us.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/automation-makes-us-dumb-1416589342
Automation Makes Us Dumb
Human intelligence is withering as computers do more, but there’s a solution.
By NICHOLAS CARR
Nov. 21, 2014 12:02 p.m. ET
