Humans are simply not equipped to handle decision making involving complex relationships in today’s globally connected world. We are limited by the slow pace of evolutionary change and rely on inherited “short-cuts” that our brains take when making decisions.
These “short-cuts” served our ancestors well in an era where the ability to make quick decisions determined life or death. However, this human thought process, once critical for survival, creates inherent cognitive biases. And these biases produce irrational decisions in modern day situations. Financial booms and busts, and our inability to predict revolutionary contagion, such as the Arab Spring, are examples of man’s poor decision making and predictive ability.
In contrast to man’s analytic competence, computer proficiency in this area has advanced at light speed. Machine intelligence is no longer science fiction. Furthermore, technology has created an unbounded mass of data by tracking and recording virtually everything, from our environment and economy to our personal consumption and desires.
