Automation bias is the tendency to over-rely on automated systems, algorithms or decision aids, accepting their output as correct even when it is wrong or when contradictory information is available. It has been documented in domains such as aviation, where pilots and air traffic controllers can fail to notice or override an incorrect automated recommendation, and clinical medicine, where practitioners may follow an automated diagnostic or dosage suggestion despite their own contrary judgment. Researchers distinguish two related failure modes, errors of omission, where a person fails to notice a problem the automation should have flagged, and errors of commission, where a person follows an incorrect automated suggestion despite evidence it is wrong.
Facts
Core ClaimAutomation bias is the propensity for humans to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct, a tendency documented in aviation, health care and military command-and-control settings. 2 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Wikipedia: Automation bias
Open Questions
Source Wikipedia: Automation bias
Sources
1. The Decision Lab: Automation Bias
Why do we accept the first plausible AI solution and stop searching, opening definition
Automation bias describes our tendency to accept and favor answers from automated decision-making systems, such as large language models like ChatGPT, even when we encounter contradictory information.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
Automation bias is the propensity for humans to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct.
View the Source2. Wikipedia: Automation bias
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction
Automation bias is the propensity for humans to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct.
- History section, Mosier and Skitka (1996) coined the term
In Branch: Cognitive Psychology, Categories
Wikipedia article 'Automation bias' is filed under Category:Cognitive biases.
View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
In what year was automation bias first identified or named as a distinct phenomenon in human factors research?
The surveyed Wikipedia article discusses automation bias research from 1997 onward (Mosier et al.) but states no year for when the phenomenon or term was first identified or named.
What would resolve this A citation to the earliest peer-reviewed study or review naming and defining automation bias as a distinct phenomenon, prior to the 1997 Mosier et al. study already cited.
history of psychologyWikipedia: Automation bias
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