Why Robots Will Always Need Us
By NICHOLAS CARRMAY 20, 2015
Inside
Supported By
Photo

Credit Johnny Sampson
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story Share This Page
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
“HUMAN BEINGS are ashamed to have been born instead of made,” wrote the philosopher Günther Anders in 1956. Our shame has only deepened as our machines have grown more adept.
Every day we’re reminded of the superiority of our computers. Self-driving cars don’t fall victim to distractions or road rage. Robotic trains don’t speed out of control. Algorithms don’t suffer the cognitive biases that cloud the judgments of doctors, accountants and lawyers. Computers work with a speed and precision that make us look like bumbling slackers.
It seems obvious: The best way to get rid of human error is to get rid of humans.
But that assumption, however fashionable, is itself erroneous. Our desire to liberate ourselves from ourselves is founded on a fallacy. We exaggerate the abilities of computers even as we give our own talents short shrift.
It’s easy to see why. We hear about every disaster involving human fallibility — the chemical plant that exploded because the technician failed to open a valve, the plane that fell from the sky because the pilot mishandled the yoke — but what we don’t hear about are all the times that people use their expertise to avoid accidents or defuse risks.
Pilots, physicians and other professionals routinely navigate unexpected dangers with great aplomb but little credit. Even in our daily routines, we perform feats of perception and skill that lie beyond the capacity of the sharpest computers. Google is quick to tell us about how few accidents its autonomous cars are involved in, but it doesn’t trumpet the times the cars’ backup drivers have had to take the wheel. Computers are wonderful at following instructions, but they’re terrible at improvisation. Their talents end at the limits of their programming.
Human skill has no such constraints. Think of how Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III landed that Airbus A320 in the Hudson River after it hit a flock of geese and its engines lost power. Born of deep experience in the real world, such intuition lies beyond calculation. If computers had the ability to be amazed, they’d be amazed by us.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage

Robotica Episode 3: Prosthetic Limbs, Controlled by Thought MAY 20, 2015

While our flaws loom large in our thoughts, we view computers as infallible. Their scripted consistency presents an ideal of perfection far removed from our own clumsiness. What we forget is that our machines are built by our own hands. When we transfer work to a machine, we don’t eliminate human agency and its potential for error. We transfer that agency into the machine’s workings, where it lies concealed until something goes awry.
Computers break down. They have bugs. They get hacked. And when let loose in the world, they face situations that their programmers didn’t prepare them for. They work perfectly until they don’t.
Many disasters blamed on human error actually involve chains of events that are initiated or aggravated by technological failures. Consider the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The plane’s airspeed sensors iced over. Without the velocity data, the autopilot couldn’t perform its calculations. It shut down, abruptly shifting control to the pilots. Investigators later found that the aviators appeared to be taken by surprise in a stressful situation and made mistakes. The plane, with 228 passengers, plunged into the Atlantic.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
The