“HUMAN BEINGS are ashamed to have been born instead of made,” wrote the philosopher Günther Anders in 1956. Our shame has only deepened as our machines have grown more adept.

Every day we’re reminded of the superiority of our computers. Self-driving cars don’t fall victim to distractions or road rage. Robotic trains don’t speed out of control. Algorithms don’t suffer the cognitive biases that cloud the judgments of doctors, accountants and lawyers. Computers work with a speed and precision that make us look like bumbling slackers.

It seems obvious: The best way to get rid of human error is to get rid of humans.

But that assumption, however fashionable, is itself erroneous. Our desire to liberate ourselves from ourselves is founded on a fallacy. We exaggerate the abilities of computers even as we give our own talents short shrift.

It’s easy to see why. We hear about every disaster involving human fallibility — the chemical plant that exploded because the technician failed to open a valve, the plane that fell from the sky because the pilot mishandled the yoke — but what we don’t hear about are all the times that people use their expertise to avoid accidents or defuse risks.