Pitfalls of Autonomy

Autonomy for Engineering Systems has become a highly controversial topic within the very parts of engineering systems theory and design where it was first gestated. In this talk I want examine the “myths of autonomy” and look carefully at some of the pitfall issues surrounding autonomy.

Achieving full autonomy in cyber-systems is an extremely complex and difficult enterprise, and very unlikely to be acceptable for reasons that are related to human endeavor as well as safety. Humans must continue to interact with computer-controlled systems. The only viable system autonomy systems will be one that support collaboration on a careful foundation of research on human–cyber system interaction. In this presentation, insight into how this last might be developed will be discussed.