ABSTRACT

As far back as 1960, academic and governmental visionaries such as Joseph Licklider mused that, “in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machine we know today” (p. 2). Although this vision has yet to be truly realized, efforts have been made toward this end. Nevertheless, until Licklider’s vision is brought to fruition, the relationship between humans and computers will generally be an uneasy one. That is to say, the complexity of computer systems will continue to regularly burden the mental capacity and patience of humans.