Ironies of Automation (1983)

Summary

This paper discusses ways in which automation of industrial processes may expand rather than eliminate problems with the human operator. This was unusual among my papers. Most of the 'big' papers took months of total concentration to write (the marvellous long vacation) - first coming up with relevant points, then mulling over the issues and helping them to emerge into a coherent framework, then translating that into a linear form which could be expressed in sentences. Writing about this topic was unusual in that I felt so strongly about the issues the paper emerged almost fully formed. These ideas were first presented at a conference, and I remember ending by asking the control engineer audience to design bad control systems so the operators would get much practise with taking over 😀 I am long retired and have not been keeping up with references to this paper, so I don’t know the current issues or the currently suggested solutions. This was written before I had a personal computer, let alone internet or mobile phone. Of course there has been much progress in the last 40 years in the technology of providing both operators and writers with support, but evidently the questions remain. It is interesting to see these ideas being expanded into deep questions about new areas of human-computer collaboration. Topics : 1. Introduction 1.1. Tasks after automation : manual control skills; cognitive skills - long term knowledge, working storage; monitoring. 1.2. Operator attitudes. 2. Approaches to solutions : monitoring, working storage, long term knowledge. 3. Human-computer collaboration : instructions and advice; mitigating human error; software generated displays; relieving human workload. 4. Conclusion.Ironies of Automation Lisanne Bainbridge Department of Psychology, University College London Automatica, 1983, 19, 775-779. (conference proceedings)Irony : combination of circumstances, the result of which is the direct opposite of what might be expected. Paradox : seemingl...