“The trouble with automation is that it often gives us what we don’t need at the cost of what we do. … When it comes to assessing the value of labor and leisure, the mind’s eye can’t see straight.”

“Automation complacency takes hold when a computer lulls us into a false sense of security. We become so confident that the machine will work flawlessly, handling any challenge that may arise, that we allow our attention to drift.”

“Automation bias creeps in when people give undue weight to the information coming through their monitors. Even when the information is wrong or misleading, they believe it. Their trust in the software becomes so strong that they ignore or discount other sources of information, including their own senses.”

“Technology changes, and it changes more quickly than human beings change.”

“When we carry out a task or a job on our own, we seem to use different mental processes than when we rely on the aid of a computer. When software reduces our engagement with our work, and in particular when it pushes us into a more passive role as observer or monitor, we circumvent the deep cognitive processing that underpins the generation effect. As a result, we hamper our ability to gain the kind of rich, real-world knowledge that leads to know-how. The generation effect requires precisely the kind of struggle that automation seeks to alleviate.”

“Automation too often becomes an impediment to automatization. In relieving us of repetitive mental exercise, it also relieves us of deep learning. Both complacency and bias are symptoms of a mind that is not being challenged, that is not fully engaged in the kind of real-world practice that generates knowledge, enriches memory, and builds skill.”

“The kinds of effort that give rise to talent—characterized by challenging tasks, clear goals, and direct feedback—are very similar to those that provide us with a sense of flow. … Automaticity is the inscription the world leaves on the active mind and the active self. Know-how is the evidence of the richness of that inscription.”

“What really makes us smart is not our ability to pull facts from documents or decipher statistical patterns in arrays of data. It’s our ability to make sense of things, to weave the knowledge we draw from observation and experience, from living, into a rich and fluid understanding of the world that we can then apply to any task or challenge.”

Oakeshott’s rationalist: “His mind has no atmosphere, no changes of season and temperature; his intellectual processes, so far as possible, are insulated from all external influence and go on in the void.”

“To never confront the possibility of getting lost is to live in a state of perpetual dislocation. If you never have to worry about not knowing where you are, then you never have to know where you are. It is also to love in a state of dependency, a ward of your phone and its apps.”

“Problems produce friction in our lives, but friction can act as a catalyst, pushing us to a fuller awareness and deeper understanding of our situation.”

“Flawlessness remains an ideal that can never be achieved. Even if a perfect automated system could be designed and built, it would still operate in an imperfect world. … The conviction that we can build an entirely self-sufficient, entirely reliable automated system is itself a manifestation of automation bias.”

“As society becomes ever more computerized, the programmer becomes its unacknowledged legislator. By defining the human factor as a peripheral concern, the technologist also removes the main impediment to the fulfillment of his desires; the unbridled pursuit of technological progress becomes self-justifying. To judge technology primarily on its technological merits it to give the gadgeteer carte blanche.”

“The attempt to avoid human errors by removing personal responsibility ends up making the errors more likely. An ignorant operator is a dangerous operator. … The human and the machine, operating under conflicting assumptions, end up working at cross-purposes.”

“The tools demand little of us and, cognitively speaking, give little to us.”

“Does our essence still lie in what we know, or are we now content to be defined by what we want?”