2014 📖 The Glass Cage

• Author: Nicholas Carr

• should hard things be automated﹖

• ~ tech becomes invisible, obscuring its role as lens

• ~ the most dangerous tech is inscrutable and invisible
• ~ if we assume tech to be slaved to us, there is no reason to ever limit it

• > Automation remakes both work and worker.

• ~ automation gives (all) power to the programmer

• ~ automation software dictates the philosophy of the object concerned

• ~ using a calculator without understanding the underlying math limits and not extends your skill

• ~ two ungainly words for becoming an expert - automatization or proceduralization

• ~ spell-checker vs. auto-correct as empowering humans vs. replacing humans

the bad

• > The trouble with automation is that it often gives us what we don’t need at the cost of what we do.
• > “What if the cost of machines that think is people who don’t?”
• ~ automation may reduce workload too much
• ~ less helpful software may generate experts faster
• ~ doctors can communicate less effectively in the digital due to loss of personal shorthand info
• ~automation is not bad, but we're bad at anticipating its consequences
• ~software taking over difficult takes kills satisfying effort-taking
• ~ you used to see the architect's style shine through, now you see the software's capabilities shine through
• ~ automation often leads to users being passive monitors, which is a job that humans are super bad at
• ~ Silicon Valley-style automation kills integral human values
• ~ recommendation engines push us towards the known

tasks

• ~ stimulate less when tasks become harder
• ~ mind not being challenged enough leads to complacency or bias

creativity/thinking

• ~ limit operations of thought strictly

expertise

• > experience in a variety of situations, all seen from the same perspective but requiring different tactical decisions

• ~ missing adequate feedback almost entirely stops progress

• ~ Turing's idea of eliminating intuition with ingenious machines

mentions

• Air France Flight 447

• Automation Bias

• Quantification Bias

  • data fundamentalism

• Automation complacency

• generation effect

• premature fixation

• Carr's checklist for automation capabilities

• 📖 The Human Use of Human Beings
• 📰 Automation Surprises
• 📖 Addiction by Design﹕ Machine Gambling in Vegas

⌣ user experience

• ~ early, mechanically controlled planes felt like braking a bicycle

ethics

• ~ there is no ethics algorithm, which is a big problem for moral automation
• ~ in automated system, humans can't step in to decide complex ethics problems

misc

• > “There is an abundance of work to do in food service and there is an abundance of work in finance, but there are fewer middle-wage, middle-income jobs.”
• first auto-piloting plane was very early (1912)
• styrofoam question to baffle computers
• ~ rationalists are reductionist in regards to culture and history
• ~ drawing is a way of thinking
• ~ Google CEO quote about apps like maps increasing IQ
• ~ video games as the one thing not built for 'usability'

• ~ gamification as automating human will

• ~ ask﹕ are you measuring what you measure because it's important or because it's easy to measure﹖

• surrendering to an algorithm