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Topic for August 2023 - Improving decision-making
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The draft agenda for our discussion on decision-making is below.
Agenda
Decision-making is fundamental to our existence. Some decisions have no significant consequences, others have huge implications for our future lives and our very existence and survival. Our lives and history are littered with good and bad decisions. Artificial intelligence offers/threatens to take over our decision-making for us, how do we make the best decisions about it?
- What is Decision Making? How do we make decisions?
- Does decision-making inherently differ between big and small decisions, short-term and long-term decisions and existential decisions?
- Is there a difference between intuitive decision-making and considered decision-making?
- Is there a difference between theoretical and pragmatic decision-making? What role do knowledge, skills, experience and thought play?
- What is good decision-making? What is bad decision-making? How do we make good decisions?
- Is there such a thing as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decision, or right or wrong decision. Is it all dependent on subsequent events? How do we judge potential outcomes? Are alternatives, brainstorming, forecasting, risk assessment, compromise, empathy, important parts of decision-making.
- Where does speed of decision-making fit in? What are the pros and cons of decisiveness?
- Is it important to be able to defend decisions?
- What gets in the way of good decision making?
- How can we improve our decision making?
- What is the difference between individual and group decision-making? How do we make good group decisions?
- What are the pros and cons of group decision-making?
- How do discussion, argument and convincing others fit in?
- How do we make good group decisions? Are big and small groups different?
- Are there important differences between operational decision-making, strategic decision-making, political decision-making?
- How can we improve group decision-making, especially Government?
- How can we improve public decision-making e.g. in elections?
- How does AI make decisions? How can we ensure AI makes better decisions than us?
- Can/should we trust AI decision-making?
- Do we need to understand the decision-making process?
- Can we combine the best of AI and human decision-making?
- How do we make the best decisions about AI?
- What is Decision Making? How do we make decisions?
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The combined output of the Probably42 discussions on this topic is now available at:
Improving Decision Making