Digitalisation – Humans & Technology: still complementary

Significant – if not disruptive – technical change is expected to shape businesses. Digitalization is the magic word. It mainly involves emerging technical possibilities such as:

• Digitalization: Extensive realization of processes in the virtual space.
• Artificial intelligence: Software that is capable to learn. It is no more based on pre-programmed problem solving.
• Internet of things: Networked physical objects that will directly communicate with each other.
• Big data: Ubiquitous availability of huge data stocks.

Such developments are expected to trigger a fourth industrial revolution that will change work even more profoundly than the previous three industrial revolutions (i) steam engine, (ii) mass production, and (iii) automation. Whether there really is a revolution undergoing or rather a long-term development process can be discussed. After all, the technological possibilities outlined above were not there suddenly. Rather, they have arisen over many years. New, however, is the incredible speed of performance enhancement inherent in this development? According to Moore’s Law, computer performance has doubled every one to two years since the 1960s. Such a long-lasting exponential development has never happened before. It has led to the availability of computer-based functionalities that were not thought possible until recently (e.g. self-driving cars). However, respective systems are still far from perfect. But the skills they have are new. Since we are probably only at the beginning of a development, the term revolution is actually not so wrong.

How do these developments affect human work? While some forecasts predict a massive job loss, others expect an upgrading of the humans’ role. However, fact is that the human contribution to a successful system performance is still qualitatively different from the contribution that technology can deliver. Typical human qualities are, for example, expertise, motivation as well as flexibility and creativity. These are all competencies that technology – be it artificially still so intelligent – does not or only rudimentary dispose of. Expertise, for example, is not just about knowing how to do something (know how) but also why you do it (knowing why). This can be crucial in ambiguous situations where the right course of action is unclear. Knowing why you do something means having understanding and insight. Technology is capable of neither. It certainly outperforms the human regarding quantity and speed of information processing. But it does not understand what it does. The technology does not have motivation either. Motivation includes, among other things, wanting to achieve something and taking responsibility for it. Both may be decisive for setting the right priorities, which cannot always be based on technical rationales solely.

Even against the background of the latest technical developments, humans and technology continue to make very different contributions to the successful functioning of the system as a whole. This qualitative diversity of humans and technology must be taken into account when designing systems. Therefore, considering technology as a competitor of the human, suitable for replacing the human, falls short. Rather humans and technology are complementary. When combined in a suitable manner, together they are able to perform on a much higher level, to which neither the human nor the technology alone is capable. The combination therefore contains the actual potential. However, it can only be exploited to a suboptimal extent by primarily perfecting technology and adapting humanity as its appendage. A smart combination of humans and technology only emerges when technology is specifically designed to enhance human strengths such as motivation, expertise or experience, and to compensate for human weaknesses such as fatigue or the limited ability to process data. Doing so means to combine humans and technology in a complementary way.

New technologies offer great opportunities for complementary system design. However, some principles need to be considered when aiming at combing humans and technology in a complementary manner:

• Role of the human: Starting point of system design is a clear concept regarding the role the human has in the future system. As it is known from failures in the past, it is very important not to consider the human a stopgap for technical shortcomings. Rather the human needs to be empowered to be an equal player. This concerns both, human-technology function allocation as well as job design.
• Human-technology function allocation: Designing human-technology goes far beyond usability. It involves the way work is split between humans and technology, i.e. the allocation of functions. Empowering the human to perform his intended role requires an adequate function allocation. Adequate means for example that the human needs to be involved in process control in order to keep an updated mental model of the situation. Otherwise technology becomes a black box.
• Job design: Even when working the human is a subject and not just a cognitive resource. Human work behavior will therefore be affected by job design as a whole and not only by cognitive engineering. Designing human-technology interaction in a way allowing for human involvement does not necessarily mean that the human is motivated to get involved. Consequently, job design criteria need to be respected too. This concerns for example decision-making latitude.

Latest as well as future developments in technology will certainly shape human work and challenge sociotechnical system design. However, humans and technology will remain qualitative different and hence complementary. Therefore, high performance still requires a smart combination of the two.

Significant – if not disruptive – technical change is expected to shape businesses. Digitalization is the magic word. It mainly involves emerging technical possibilities such as:

• Digitalization: Extensive realization of processes in the virtual space.
• Artificial intelligence: Software that is capable to learn. It is no more based on pre-programmed problem solving.
• Internet of things: Networked physical objects that will directly communicate with each other.
• Big data: Ubiquitous availability of huge data stocks.

Such developments are expected to trigger a fourth industrial revolution that will change work even more profoundly than the previous three industrial revolutions (i) steam engine, (ii) mass production, and (iii) automation. Whether there really is a revolution undergoing or rather a long-term development process can be discussed. After all, the technological possibilities outlined above were not there suddenly. Rather, they have arisen over many years. New, however, is the incredible speed of performance enhancement inherent in this development? According to Moore’s Law, computer performance has doubled every one to two years since the 1960s. Such a long-lasting exponential development has never happened before. It has led to the availability of computer-based functionalities that were not thought possible until recently (e.g. self-driving cars). However, respective systems are still far from perfect. But the skills they have are new. Since we are probably only at the beginning of a development, the term revolution is actually not so wrong.

How do these developments affect human work? While some forecasts predict a massive job loss, others expect an upgrading of the humans’ role. However, fact is that the human contribution to a successful system performance is still qualitatively different from the contribution that technology can deliver. Typical human qualities are, for example, expertise, motivation as well as flexibility and creativity. These are all competencies that technology – be it artificially still so intelligent – does not or only rudimentary dispose of. Expertise, for example, is not just about knowing how to do something (know how) but also why you do it (knowing why). This can be crucial in ambiguous situations where the right course of action is unclear. Knowing why you do something means having understanding and insight. Technology is capable of neither. It certainly outperforms the human regarding quantity and speed of information processing. But it does not understand what it does. The technology does not have motivation either. Motivation includes, among other things, wanting to achieve something and taking responsibility for it. Both may be decisive for setting the right priorities, which cannot always be based on technical rationales solely.

Even against the background of the latest technical developments, humans and technology continue to make very different contributions to the successful functioning of the system as a whole. This qualitative diversity of humans and technology must be taken into account when designing systems. Therefore, considering technology as a competitor of the human, suitable for replacing the human, falls short. Rather humans and technology are complementary. When combined in a suitable manner, together they are able to perform on a much higher level, to which neither the human nor the technology alone is capable. The combination therefore contains the actual potential. However, it can only be exploited to a suboptimal extent by primarily perfecting technology and adapting humanity as its appendage. A smart combination of humans and technology only emerges when technology is specifically designed to enhance human strengths such as motivation, expertise or experience, and to compensate for human weaknesses such as fatigue or the limited ability to process data. Doing so means to combine humans and technology in a complementary way.

New technologies offer great opportunities for complementary system design. However, some principles need to be considered when aiming at combing humans and technology in a complementary manner:

• Role of the human: Starting point of system design is a clear concept regarding the role the human has in the future system. As it is known from failures in the past, it is very important not to consider the human a stopgap for technical shortcomings. Rather the human needs to be empowered to be an equal player. This concerns both, human-technology function allocation as well as job design.
• Human-technology function allocation: Designing human-technology goes far beyond usability. It involves the way work is split between humans and technology, i.e. the allocation of functions. Empowering the human to perform his intended role requires an adequate function allocation. Adequate means for example that the human needs to be involved in process control in order to keep an updated mental model of the situation. Otherwise technology becomes a black box.
• Job design: Even when working the human is a subject and not just a cognitive resource. Human work behavior will therefore be affected by job design as a whole and not only by cognitive engineering. Designing human-technology interaction in a way allowing for human involvement does not necessarily mean that the human is motivated to get involved. Consequently, job design criteria need to be respected too. This concerns for example decision-making latitude.

Latest as well as future developments in technology will certainly shape human work and challenge sociotechnical system design. However, humans and technology will remain qualitative different and hence complementary. Therefore, high performance still requires a smart combination of the two.