tyler cowen article review

Article Review
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Article Review
In the article titled One Productivity Problem: We’re Only Human, Tyler Cowen expresses his opinions on how the human imperfections are affecting productivity growth. However, in his description, he fails to mention the positive sides of human error. For this reason, this paper will be addressing the benefits of human error on productivity in the United States of America.
Cowen instigates his argument with a statement about how humans are poor at following instructions. Precisely, he states that “We are not great at following rules, and we work better in communities” (Cowen, 2017). Subsequently, Cowen supports these claims by giving various examples. He explains that the healthcare sector would be working better if patients and practitioners were more keen and disciplined. For instance, people opt to take up poor dietary habits and medication to control blood sugar, which has led to an increase in diabetes patients. Cowen also blames this on the low returns on the development of new anti-diabetes medicines (2017). Another example that further supports Cowen’s claim about social influence is the music concert he claims to have attended. Despite watching Paul McCartney performing on stage on a TV screen at the venue of the show, Cowen states that he was highly entertained because other people around him were similarly enjoying the show (Cowen, 2017). This shows that indeed, people’s actions, behaviors, and preferences greatly influence those around them.

Cowen also uses the mode of instruction in a class setting to illustrate his claim that humans work better in the company of others. According to Cowen (2017, May 03), e-learning is the most efficient and affordable in comparison to the conventional classroom setting. However, most people prefer the conventional mode of learning because, in this method, an individual student’s understanding greatly depends on the non-verbal cues observed in other classmates. Cowen states that this results from the lack of connection among the members of the audience. While Cowen acknowledges that there is a connection between the students and teachers in online learning, he also observes that the much-needed connection among the classmates lacks in the setting. Therefore, despite the recent improvements in technology, Cowen concludes that education continues to be expensive because of the human nature to be effectively operational in a group than as individuals (Cowen, 2017).
Based on the examples above, Cowen’s main intention is to prove that humans are prone to error and swift influence as opposed to machines. He claims that humans “do not behave rationally” (Cohen, 2017). It is worth noting that most of the examples given above are valid and have a considerable amount of truth to them. However, it would be inaccurate to explicitly portray the nature of humans to err in a negative light. Even Cowen himself points out that there are few exceptions with distinct cognitive characteristics and personality (2017). In this regard, one cannot simply generalize these results to everyone even though Cowen’s observations contain some amount of validity. Regarding aforementioned observations, it is worth mentioning that Cowen neglected to state the fact that there are numerous benefits of human errors on productivity. In the article, Cowen accepts that it is the nature of humans to make errors. As such, it is prudent to replace humans with specialized machines as they are not prone to human errors and do not influence easily as humans (Cowen, 2017). However, humans are the ones responsible for the invention and manufacturing of these machines. Before coming up with the perfect specialized machines, the inventors make numerous mistakes, most of them due to human error as well as calculations until they finally make the most suitable models for these machines.
According to Rauterberg and Felix (1996), unsuccessful behavior often results in self-correction and improvement of a given process until a person is successful. Most machines, on the other hand, do not learn from their past mistakes (Blue, 2016), with the exception of Artificial Intelligence. Cowen’s tone suggests that humans are less reliable than machines. However, this assumption will also mean that these machines cannot be trusted because of the same humans design and manufacture them. Therefore, we must avoid the conservative understanding of human errors particularly characterized by the negative valuation of erroneous behavior (Rauterberg & Felix, 1996). Without human errors, whether during the design, manufacturing or use of these machines for the various industrial process, it would be impossible to identify the areas that need improving. While it is true that machines are more productive in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, it is worth noting that it is through the discovery of errors that humans improve and upgrade these machines to enhance productivity further.
In conclusion, Cowen wrote a thought-provoking article aimed at increasing human productivity. However, this article neglected an important aspect of the positive impact of human errors on productivity. Understandably, Cowen (2017) intended to improve human productivity at either academic, domestic or industrial level by pointing out the human weaknesses and how to overcome them. However, it was also important to point out the aspects of human productivity that the author overlooked and their implications on the overall perception of the reader. Therefore, instead of looking at human error from a negative perspective, they should be taken as a learning opportunity to identify better ways of achieving the same task more efficiently.

References
Blue, B. (2016, May 02). Advantages and Disadvantages of Automation in Manufacturing. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from http://www.vista-industrial.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-automation-in-manufacturing/
Cowen, T. (2017, May 03). One Productivity Problem: We’re Only Human. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-03/one-productivity-problem-we-re-only-human
Rauterberg, M., & Felix, D. (1996). Human errors: disadvantages and advantages. In Proceedings of the 4th Pan Pacific Conference on Occupational Ergonomics (pp. 25-28).