Book review: ‘The Glass Cage: Automation and Us’ by Nicholas Carr - Books - The Boston Globe

Final paragraphs from a review of "The Glass Cage"

"He suggests that automated systems should require humans to participate in vital activities. An aircraft autopilot might require the pilot to manually change the plane’s course, altitude, and speed; a medical diagnostic program might run regular quizzes to teach radiologists to spot unusual cancers. And once self-driving vehicles arrive, we might require their human owners to take the wheel every now and then.

Of course, this kind of automation with a human face would be more costly and timeconsuming, making it less likely that businesses will race to embrace it. More likely, we’ll have to tolerate a world of ever smarter machines, operated by ever less capable humans. Not a cheerful prospect, but we can’t say we weren’t warned."

Book review: ‘The Glass Cage: Automation and Us’ by Nicholas Carr - Books - The Boston Globe