Definition
Automating the routine parts removes the practice that maintains skill, then requires the deskilled operator to take over in the rare emergency. It also covers the designer irony: the designer who distrusts the operator is a major source of operating problems.
What is at stake
This is 1983. Most of the current research is a restatement of it, and that is the answer whenever someone calls the concern new.
Where the word came from
- Ironies of AutomationLisanne Bainbridge, 1983
- Automation-induced complacency and out-of-the-loop performancethe human factors literature that followed
- Falling asleep at the wheelDell'Acqua's recruiter experiment, 2022
The chain runs forward here rather than back, which is the point.
How episcope came to it
Bainbridge's Ironies of Automation, Automatica, 1983.
Papers behind it
Bainbridge, L. (1983). Ironies of Automation. Automatica, 19(6), 775-779.
Peer reviewed
Dell'Acqua, F. (2022). Falling Asleep at the Wheel: Human/AI Collaboration in a Field Experiment on HR Recruiters. Harvard Business School working paper.
Working paper
Read next
The jagged frontierThe invisible line between what AI does well and badly.Cognitive surrenderAccepting AI output with minimal scrutiny.Cognitive debtJudgment eroding when task and responsibility both go to AI.
Back to the glossary