AI and Decisions

Good, colorful piece on the who idea of designing decisions.  I like the point made that 'most decisions are not binary',  noting that it is rarely just finding the best decision, at minimum such an endeavor should include a risk analysis for that decision, and typically more. 

AI Designs Decisions  in Towardsdatascience

Dissection of survey evidence on AI-powered decision-making

Ian Domowitz

Havelock Ellis said it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things met with by the way. He was speaking of philosophy. In business AI is all about goal attainment. The things met along the way are decisions.

Decisions constitute a focus of the recent survey by Signal AI of 1,000 C-suite executives in an attempt to estimate the impact of AI on the U.S. economy. According to the survey, 96 percent of business leaders believe AI will transform decision making and 92 percent agree companies should leverage AI to augment decision-making processes.

AI is not so sure.

Most decisions are not binary

Neither survey nor business directors are informative with respect to the types of decisions involved. Most respondents say they spend upwards of 40 hours a week on the process. No surprise: that is presumably why they are paid, but with 80 percent of leaders claiming there are too much data to evaluate, senior management is looking for relief. Where does AI fit in the picture?

AI aspires to set and achieve goals by motivating and guiding the organization through phases of decision making. Four kinds of decisions are relevant.

Policy decisions involve choosing what goals to pursue and how they will be attained. Proper adaptation of the technology to the company ought to define these objectives. AI risks failure at this step by falling in love with creative fire and failing to recognize practical guidelines.  ....