Czarina Games

Serious Games Online Research and Development from Dr. Alicia Sanchez

Automation Bias – Cognitive Bias 9

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After far too long away doing some personal things, I wanted to come back with a Cognitive Bias we could really sink our teeth into!  Today we’re going to talk about a very timely Cognitive Bias, the Automation Effect.

The Automation Effect suggest that we are more likely to believe information that comes from an automated decision-making system than from other sources even when those sources are correct. Oh yeah. This one is going to be a problem for us. There are lots of situations in which we rely on automated information to be absolutely correct. When we look at our phones, we 100% believe the time on the front. This is because over time it has been consistently accurate and because we understand that the time on your phone is likely coming from a satellite which seems pretty reliable. If the time on our phones became unreliable, then we would be less likely to believe it, but I think we have cracked the nut on phone time. It’s a simple transmission of information, its not an automated decision-making system. The real danger point comes when we think about the future of our decision-making systems, in which all arrows point towards AI.

When our phone autocorrects us, we immediately notice and often get annoyed. Nobody has ever wanted to say ducking, have they?  The autocorrect system on our phones is an automated decision support/making system; but we don’t often suffer the Automation bias when it comes to full word autocorrect “fails”, likely because we know what our intent was. Sometimes we might second guess it if it corrects spelling to something that might be correct but is unfamiliar to us, but we generally know what we are trying to say and know when the system has made an error.

Now let’s move onto really complex systems like airplane autopilot systems. An autopilot system takes in a ton of information from various systems. Speed, altitude, navigation and many others. The autopilot FLIES the plane. Does this not freak anyone else out?  But based on all of the information that it receives; the autopilot does a great job!  We don’t let it take off or land, but it probably could. And this is how these problems get started. We trust autopilot. We couldn’t possible calculate wind speed, trajectory, etc. in our heads without the help of the systems that feed the autopilot. We expect it to take perfect information and make perfect decisions because unlike human beings, computers are generally infallible. This reliance can lead to misuse and lack of attention to other cues that might be important, but it’s easy to imagine disregarding those, especially when information comes from highly more fallible humans.

Now let’s think about our increased reliance on AI. I’m hoping you all watch Black Mirror and have seen how fun science fiction becomes when we begin relying more and more on automated decision-making systems. The problem is, that when we trust these systems more than we trust humans…. well…. trouble. AI systems have not yet to date actually accomplished their ultimate goals. Artificial Intelligence today is only as good as the humans who have programmed it. For example, a computer who is taught to add numbers cannot subtract them unless its been specifically taught to do so. Everything computers can do is still controlled by humans. Totally fallible humans. Sure, they can take in much more information than a human and process it. But, without common sense and a human paying attention to understand the nuance, AI is not yet infallible. So, let’s not fall for this Automation Bias quite yet.

Just World Hypothesis – Cogntive Bias Series 5

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This week lets tackle a Cognitive Bias that I think we either fully subscribe to, or we don’t at all. This week’s bias is called the Just World Hypothesis. This bias is a really old one, relating back to the he Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus in 180 CE according to Wikipedia. In the 60’s Melvin Lerner expanded on this hypothesis and gave it its name.

The Just World Hypothesis suggests that people think the world is inherently just. And that actions we take are either rewarded if they are positive or punished if they are negative in the long-term schema of our existence. Its literally the impetus of “what comes around goes around”. It is Karma embodied. That if we do something good, good things will come to us and vice versa.

I know firmly where I fit into the two camps that either subscribe to or do not subscribe to this theory. I do not subscribe. I have often wished I could get front row tickets to the karma show, but it hasn’t happened yet. In truth, I believe doing good things is rarely rewarded, and doing bad things is rarely punished. In my belief system, the world just works that way. Let’s check out a fun example of this, and for shits and giggles, lets make it a work setting.

I once had a boss who felt strongly and vocally that my work, even when dependent on the decision making of other teams, should be completely done in isolation. I was forbidden from discussing my project with the team that had created the work I was trying to expand on. Bad boss, right?  Yes. Bad boss. So, I had a choice. I could let the cosmos punish my boss for the closed-minded thinking, and watch the project fail because that would be the just thing to happen. Or I could make it work come hell or high water. Because ultimately the failure would rest on me. While the project should have failed, I worked even harder to make it successful. (Ultimately, it was neither successful nor a failure). Oh, did I want it to fail, in spite of my efforts, just to serve as a punishment to the bad behavior. Because, if this was a just world, that is what would happen.

Some would say that somewhere down the road this person will ultimately continue this behavior and that there will be grand failures. But not me. I know this world isn’t just. I know this leader will continue to behave that way. I know there will be no consequence. Could that person be more successful?  Probably. But they won’t be a failure. Because of people like me who will work all the harder to make up for their bad behavior.

Not the best example, but one that I think we see fairly often at the workplace. Bad behavior is not punished because other people find a way around it to avoid failure. So, the bad behavior is ultimately rewarded. Because this world isn’t just. And our jobs aren’t just. And our lives will never be just. So sad.

But this bias isn’t about the world being just. It’s just about believing it is. So how do we combat this bias?  The bias could go either way. There isn’t a whole lot of harm in being on either side of the coin, right?  Maybe there is. Maybe we let people live the consequences of their actions because we realize that the world may or not be just, but that we make our own decisions and when its in our power, we should allow it.

The Games Czar

Czarina Games was founded by Dr. Alicia Sanchez. A graduate of the University of Central Florida’s Modeling and Simulation program, Alicia is internationally known as a serious games expert.

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