The Automation Paradox

Researching for this particular post was interesting, though there exists a general consensus on what The Automation Paradox is, regardless there are articles which talk about some pretty different ideas under the same name.

•  This article from The Atlantic uses the term to describe the counter intuitive effect automation has had on employment rates.
• Vanessa Hill from Braincraft defines it as "The more automated machines are, the less we rely on our own skills. But instead of relying less on automation to improve our skills, we instead rely even more on automation." Or, "In order for automation to exist, there must be manual control. But the more manual control there is, the more automation there will be."
• The most agreed upon definition of the idea seems to be from John Kaufman’s The Personal MBA, which reads“The Paradox of Automation says that the more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the human contribution of the operators. Humans are less involved, but their involvement becomes more critical.”
  
  If an automated system has an error, it will multiply that error until it’s fixed or shut down. This is where human operators come in.
  
  Efficient Automation makes humans more important, not less.

All the above are thought provoking notions indeed and tap into one of the most fundamental fears of the modern man, to be overtaken by machines. Fears of losing jobs to technology not only applies to blue collar jobs, but has also invaded professionals of various fields, as the article mentioned above argues. But this has not led to massive unemployment. In the legal industry, for example the ease in processing has led to cheaper costs of individual cases and demands have increased, which actually caused growth in employment rates in the sector. This is also true for banking and financial services and almost every industry which underwent automation. While this is not true for all fields, as some jobs have become obsolete with the advent of technology, it is still a comforting find.

The matters are not so soothing when we talk about John Kaufman’s idea of the automation paradox, the grimmest example of it can be traced back to the shocking crash of Air France 447, where the auto pilot disengaged due to a faulty pressure probe. A faulty maneuver by the co-pilot caused the plane to stall and neither the pilot nor the co-pilot had a clue as to what was happening, the plane crashed into the Atlantic in a matter of minutes killing everyone aboard. With self-driving cars just around the corner, we need to ask ourselves what kind of effects automation of such large scales might have on future generations. Automation in planes have increased passengers’ safety manifold, the likelihood of dying in a plane crash are close to one in a million. But incidents like these make us question their capabilities. The need for human intervention in situations like these are vital, but humans, with their extensive reliance on technology have rendered themselves useless. Our ever increasing integration of technology has improved our lives to a great extent, and has made learning certain skillsets optional, if not totally impractical. This has caused us to be at the mercy of technology and any failure in it could have catastrophic consequences.