Automation, Augmentation and the Neurosymbolic Loop

Maybe you’ve heard the saying before: augmentation before automation. The phrase is a design rule for systems requiring human-computer interaction (HCI), where the guiding system principle is one to extend the capabilities of a human without overriding human thought, taste and judgement. A simple definition of HCI is the discipline that decides what a machine does and what what a human does, within a system cohabitated by human and machine.¹ This is to say that HCI concerns itself with the division of labor and the augmentation of human work. When choosing augmentation, the goal is to enlarge human work, expanding what is possible while defining clear delineations between human contributions and machine contributions. Automation involves removing humans from tasks and responsibilities, where the machine assumes the responsibilities normally allocated in part or whole, to humans.