Irony of Automation revisited: better systems leave humans unprepared in critical moments
mmitchell_ai · x · 2026-09-02
Margaret Mitchell cites Bainbridge's 1983 concept of the "irony of automation": the better the automatic system, the less prepared the human operator is to take over when it matters. She notes that forty years later, we are shipping these systems at scale. Links to the full paper and a related video discussion are provided.
Related event: New Paper: AI Agents Are Pushing Humans Out of the Loop(10 posts)→
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