Introduction: Rising above the Levels of Automation

Abstract

Automated systems can be wonderful, but strategies for ensuring activation when needed and preventing inadvertent activations contribute to reliable, safe, and trustworthy operation that increases user acceptance. Good design also includes ways for maintenance staff to gather performance data to know whether the operation is correct and adjust controls to make sure the device functions correctly. The long-standing levels of automation which went from full human control to full computer control has limited imagination of what is possible. Breaking free from the assumption of a zero-sum situation in which more automation means less human control requires fresh thinking.