Making checklists and AI

(a developing thought)

I'm reading Power and Prediction and at a certain point the authors confront rule based systems with AI as if one is bad/old/démodé and the other is better. You can easily guess which is which. One example provided is the use of checklists. The authors argue that, eventually, AI could replace checklist, but forget that a checklist is made, read and executed by humans, and this process adds value to that person in the form of knowledge about the system. As a process with a required effort, it allows for a reflexive subprocess where the person goes through items and assigns a cognitive load to each task. If AI merely transforms the process in a guidance mechanism that at any given point feeds the user a task to process, then the AI system, although giving the illusion of productivity enhancer is in fact forcing a bigger loss. That loss is the value of persons free will in the decision process. If AI is just a one item checklist generator then AI aim will be to replace the human entirely as soon as the task is accomplished by a companion roboticised system.