Page 269 - The Design Thinking Playbook

What do the design criteria of the future look like?

The design criteria begin to change when the machines act semi- social systems. Not to be forgotten, ethics: How is a robot to decide
autonomously. In this case, human beings collaborate with robots. in a borderline situation? Let’s assume a self-driving truck gets into
Robots perform individual tasks, while centralized control is still in the a borderline situation in which it must decide whether to swerve to
hands of human beings. the right or the left. A retired couple is standing to the right; on the
left, there’s a young mother with a baby buggy. What are the ethical
Things become really exciting when human beings interact with values upon which a decision is made? Is the life of a mother with a
robots as a team. Such teams have far-reaching possibilities and can small child worth more than that of the retirees?
A human being makes an intuitive decision in such a borderline situa-
• make faster decisions, tion, which is based on his own ethics and the rules known to him. He
• evaluate many decisions synchronously while doing so, can decide himself whether he wants to break a rule in a borderline
• solve difficult tasks, and situation, such as failing to brake at a stop sign. A robot follows the
• perform complex tasks. rules it has been fed in this respect.

Relevant criteria, which are to be fulfilled by a human–robot team,
are inferred from the specific structure of a task. Design thinking tries
to realize the ideal composition of task characteristics and charac-
teristics of team members. But if human beings and robots will act
together on a team in the future, the question arises of whether it is
more important for us humans to retain decision-making authority or
to be part of an efficient team. In the end, a good team performance
is probably more important. Creating a functioning team is a complex
affair, however, because three systems are relevant in the relationship
between human beings and robots: the human being, the machine,
and the social or cultural environment.
The great challenge is how the systems understand one another.
Machines can simply process data and information. Human beings
have the ability to recognize emotions and gear their activities accord-
ingly, while both systems have difficulties in the area of knowledge.
Knowing what the others know is pivotal! And then there is the
element of the social systems. Human behavior differs widely due
to its individual forms of existence in different cultures and different

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