Symbiotic systems: Exploiting human creativity

Although computers have become increasingly powerful in the solution of large and complex problems, and will continue to do so, there remains a class of problem in which the human capabilities of creativity and visualization are necessary for the development of good solutions. For example, an industrial engineer may be able to see instantly the flaw in a particular factory layout, and may also visualize a good alternative solution, but a computer would perform a lengthy sequential search for the flaw, and might never find the good alternative. Symbiotic systems are defined, which combine a human domain expert with a computer component designed to support the human's creative visualization capability. Each successful application described herein required a unique approach.