The Design of Future things: Chapter 2

The Design of Future things
Donald A. Norman

This Chapter goes into more depth regarding the relationship between man and machine.  When the first machines were created, interaction was purely one way with the human controlling the machine.  With the creation of computer and basic AI systems, machines are starting to have a voice of their own.  On a low level, appliances will notify you when they have finished their task.  On a higher level, some cars will pay attention to their driver and in case the driver is drowsy at the wheel or not paying attention, the car will beep or vibrate in order to wake the driver up or make him pay more attention to the road.  The car and driver relationship has come to replace horse and driver however, they still have many similarities.  In the future, there will be no need for driver's.  The driving of cars will become a hobby just like horse riding is now.  The day when people no longer need to drive cars will be the day when machines are smart enough to make informed decisions on a high enough level as humans. 

The sooner man can be removed from the machine, the safer they will probably be.  In most situations, wrecks are always due to driver error.  If cars drove themselves, and perhaps were on a network with all the other cars, death from car crashes most likely disappear.  There is always a chance of some possible error, however, machines are much less likely to make an error than humans.  It is my belief that once the technology is there, we should get rid of the human driver altogether.  People could then just be passengers in a car that drives itself.  As machines get smarter and smarter, humans cannot afford to get "dumber".  We should always have manual back up systems for machines.  Not to do so would be foolish.  Assuming that most of these automatic cars would use gps for routing, all it takes is a significant solar flare to take out over 50% of earth's satellites.  Then most of our gps systems would be worthless.  Humans cannot afford to lose common sense as machines and computers get smarter.