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Decisive AI

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Decisive AI

Reducing Decision Debt and Preserving Human Judgment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Matthew Arthurs,

15 min read
9 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Humans must guard against relinquishing their decision-making capacity.

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8

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Recommendation

Interacting with an advanced generative artificial intelligence (AI) model can feel a lot like interacting with a highly intelligent human being. Every question, regardless of difficulty, returns a clear, authoritative-seeming answer in a matter of seconds. But while it may seem like AI’s speed and scale may be rendering human leaders’ decision-making skills unnecessary, the opposite is true, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Arthurs argues. In this practical guide, Arthurs unpacks the vital roles human leadership and judgment play in an otherwise automated world.

Summary

“Decision Debt” builds when people avoid or delay decisions that require human judgment.

Engineers like to talk about “Technical Debt,” which is the cost of adopting an easy, short-term solution that has to be repaired later — potentially at considerable expense. Decision Debt is similar to Technical Debt. A Decision Debt is essentially debt you incur by avoiding or delaying making a hard decision until some ill-defined future point in time.

In a world shaped by artificial intelligence, you can amplify Decision Debt in two additional ways:

  • “Outsourcing” — You ask an AI tool to make a decision, and though you technically approve the output, you don’t fully understand how or why it arrived at its conclusion.
  • “Surrendering” — You relinquish all decision-making responsibility, giving full responsibility to the AI.

In both cases, you sidestep decisions that ought to rely on human judgment.

Moreover, AI can easily become another excuse to delay: leaders often give into the temptation to keep ordering additional analysis from the AI or spend more time figuring out how to use decision-making software...

About the Author

Matthew Arthurs is a US Army Lieutenant Colonel in charge of strategic operations and a senior technical program leader in regulated industries, governing large engineering and operations portfolios. He is the author of the Decisive Edge book series, and is the creator of the decision tools in beadecisiveleader.com.

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