The Risks of Autonomy: Doyle's Catch

摘要

As a participant in multiple recent national advisory activities, I have listened to many technology advocates present briefings that envisioned the future after deployments of increasingly autonomous technologies (e.g., Abbott, McKenney, & Railsback, 2013; Murphy & Shields, 2012; National Research Council, 2014). The briefings uniformly focused on the benefits that will flow from additional investments in autonomous technologies. The message is consistent: In the near future we will be able to delegate authority to networks of vehicles that will then carry out a widening range of activities autonomously. Even though these activities serve the purposes of various human stakeholders, the presenters take it for granted that humans' involvement will decrease and, eventually, become unnecessary. These same beliefs about the impact of new technology have accompanied past advances even though the actual impacts have been quite different than those envisioned (Sarter, Woods, & Billings, 1997).