Neo-symbiosis: A Conceptual Tool for System Design

In 1960 Licklider advanced the notion of symbiosis between humans and computers that would think as no human brain has ever thought. This paper updates Licklider ´s vision of symbiosis and recasts it into current theories of cognition. This updated version of Licklider´s vision is termed neo-symbiosis. Kahneman´s notion of two processing systems provides a useful theoretical framework for capturing both expertise and information processing biases. System 1, termed intuition, is fast and effortless. It is simultaneously the source of much human expertise, while also being the locus of cognitive and perceptual illusions. System 2, termed reasoning, is the locus of rational thought. It also has the task of monitoring System 1 output. Computers need to support System 2 processing. A neo-symbiotic design philosophy is presented followed by an illustrative example. Evaluative metrics are discussed. It is concluded that even absent evaluation metrics, neo-symbiosis provides a desirable design goal