Single correct option
The paradox of automation is that the more reliable a system becomes, the more devastating its rare failures tend to be for the humans supposed to be overseeing it. When machines rarely fail, human operators lose the vigilance and practised skill needed to intervene effectively at the exact moments failure does occur; their attention drifts, their manual proficiency atrophies from disuse, and they are handed control only in the narrow, disorienting window when the system has already exceeded its own competence. Greater automation, in this sense, does not remove human error from a process; it relocates it to a rarer but far higher-stakes moment.
- A. Automation should be abandoned in favour of manual human control wherever safety is critical
- B. Highly reliable automated systems paradoxically leave humans less prepared to handle the rare failures that do occur
- C. Human operators are inherently unsuited to overseeing any automated system, regardless of its reliability
- D. Automation failures are becoming more frequent as systems grow more complex over time
Show answer and solution
Answer: (B) Highly reliable automated systems paradoxically leave humans less prepared to handle the rare failures that do occur
The passage's core claim is the stated paradox: greater reliability reduces vigilance and skill, so humans are least prepared exactly when a rare failure demands their intervention. Option 2 captures this cause-and-effect. Option 1 is a policy prescription the passage never makes. Option 3 overgeneralises 'inherently unsuited'. Option 4 misstates the claim — the passage says failures become rarer, not more frequent; it is their consequence, not frequency, that worsens.
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