should be automated?

• Who gets to decide what will be automated?

In contrast to the fundamental question underlying all of machine-centered computing, “What can be efficiently automated?” the fundamental question underlying all of human-centered computing might be, “How can one efficiently automate processes that can and should be automated?” This question includes the practitioner’s question, “How can process p be automated?” the theoretician’s question, “What can be efficiently automated?” and the question of human-centered computing, “What should be automated?” All three aspects are necessary, but they lie in different domains of knowledge. The first one belongs to the domains of engineering-oriented and empirical computing disciplines, the second one belongs also to the domain of theoretically oriented computer science, and the third one belongs perhaps to the domains of social sciences and applied philosophy.

The theoretician’s questions, the practitioner’s question, and the human-centered question are portrayed in Figure 1. All of those questions are important themselves, and research in nonintersecting areas is important. However, whereas in machine-centered computing the production of efficient and reliable technology takes place in the area delineated by the question “How do we automate things reliably and efficiently?” in human-centered computing the responsible production of useful and fair technology takes place in the intersection marked with light gray.

In order for human-centered computing to really respond to human needs, it is not enough to consider only technical and ethical questions, but also the needs, wants, hopes, expectations, wishes, fears, concerns, and anxieties that people have regarding technology. Although human-centered computing does not eliminate the need for technological experts, the methodological, conceptual, and theoretical toolbox of technology experts is insufficient for dealing with the unique issues of human-centered computing. That is, the toolbox of computing disciplines is in most of its parts insufficient for selecting, recording, understanding, explaining, analyzing, or predicting phenomena in the field of human affairs. We need to borrow tools from other disciplines.

Computing researchers in general need not become experts in sociocultural, ethical, economic, or other issues outside of the discipline of computing. Mastering computing topics is hard enough as it is. It is equally unreasonable to expect people from other disciplines to become experts in the discipline of computing. Expert s, specialists, and professionals have their areas of expertise and they should do what they know best. Instead of scores of broadly trained bricoleurs, human-centered computing requires a working multidisciplinary combination of experts from different fields. Human-centered computing does not necessarily need to spawn new interdisciplinary fields, but it might best work as an eclectic, multidisciplinary umbrella term for different kinds of computing research that share the focus on the human.

The increasing interest in human-centered issues in the field of computing is especially lucid in practically oriented branches of computing. Focusing on the human in computing research inevitably brings forth a number of ethical and social questions that have not been important in machine-centered computing. In human-centered computing, concerns about social and cultural responsibility, responsiveness to people’s needs, the consideration of individual and social consequences, and sensitivity to human expectations and anxieties limit the production of computing machinery as much as the machine-centered questions of efficiency and reliability. The ethical questions of human-centered computing are certainly not any easier than the technical and theoretical questions of machine-centered computing. But no matter how one approaches the new problems that a human focus brings forth, a shift from machine-centered computing to human-centered computing inevitably shifts the question from “What can be automated?” to “What should be automated?”

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Matti Tedre works as an associate professor and head of B.Sc. program in IT at Tumaini University,

Tanzania. His research interests include information technology education, social studies of computer science, the history of computer science, and the philosophy of computer science. Previously, he has worked and studied at the University of Joensuu in Finland, studied at universities of Ajou and Yonsei in South Korea, visited the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and worked in the software industry.

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September + October 2008

DOI 10.1145/1390085.1390096