Against cleverness

"Today we are at the cusp of revolutions in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, renewable energy, and biotechnology. Each brings extraordinary promise, but each introduces more complexity, more interdependence, and more latent pathways to failure. This elevates prudence to be critical. Good design recognizes what cannot be foreseen. It acknowledges the limits of prediction and control. It builds not merely for performance, but for recovery."

"When something goes wrong, our gut reaction is to turn to the person involved. This is sometimes known as the active failure, ascribing failure merely to the active failure is a mistake. It is a mistake that shows lack of appreciation for systems, for latent complexity, for the reality of how things fail. This reflex is a vestige of an older worldview, one in which human vigilance and effort were assumed to be the primary safeguards against failure. Now we know better."

"The systems view rejects this premise entirely. A system, as we have repeated, is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. If a system produces recurring failures, the fault lies not with the operator but with the structure that shaped the operator's choices. Good design aims not at perfect people but at ordinary people performing reliably under normal conditions."

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, renewable energy, and biotechnology increase complexity, interdependence, and latent failure pathways, making prudence essential. Effective design accepts limits of prediction and control and prioritizes recovery as well as performance. Blaming individuals for errors ignores systemic causes and latent complexity. Systems shape human choices, so recurring failures indicate structural faults rather than operator shortcomings. Design should enable ordinary people to perform reliably by aligning correct and natural actions, eliminating predictable errors through system changes rather than demanding greater vigilance or exhortations to 'try harder.' An integrated design philosophy focuses on resilience, recovery, and shaping conditions to prevent failure.

Read at Medium