Book Reading #1: Design of Future Things - Ch1

Cautious Cars and Cantankerous Kitchens: How Machines Take Control

Reference Information:
Title: Design of Future Things
Author: Donald Norman
Publication: Basic Books 2009.

Summary:
In this chapter the author talks about how machines are getting smarter, and as they are getting smarter, they are taking more and more control. Whenever a task is partially automated, it is essential that each party, human and machine, know what the other is doing and what is intended. For this, there needs to be proper communication/dialogue between the machine and the human. What we see today is one way communication - monologues. And two monologues do not make a dialogue.
As technology becomes more powerful, its failure in terms of collaboration and communication becomes extremely critical. The author stresses on Socrates's point that a technology that gives no opportunity for discussion, explanation or debate is a poor technology. Failure in proper communication can lead to accidents. If the actions of so-called intelligent device lead to an accident, it will probably be blamed on human error.
It is important for us to understand that even though machines are superior to us in some ways like speed, power and consistency, they lack social skills, creativity and imagination. It is this mismatch that matters because this is what gives rise to frustration, anger, disappointment and sometimes, injury. Machines can work very well in controlled environments where there are no unexpected events or human interference. After all, no matter how smart machines get, they will always have only as much sense as the designers were able to program into them, which isn't really much, given that they can't really know what's going on.

Discussion:
I completely agree with what the author has to say about the smart technology and the machines taking over. I believe that the machines will never completely take over and singularity is not possible. However, our dependence on machines and machine intelligence will keep increasing. For example, with the advent of GPS navigation, people don't remember directions any more, they completely rely on the GPS navigation. So, in a situation in which the navigation systems malfunctions, the result would be extreme frustration and disappointment.
The lesson to be learnt here is that it's good to use machines to save time and for convenience, but that doesn't mean that we forget how to get the work done without the machines. Complete reliance on machine intelligence is definitely not something that we desire.