My latest article at Behavioral Scientist: Principles for the Application of Human Intelligence

I am somewhat slow in posting this – the article has been up more than a week – but my latest article is up at Behavioral Scientist.

The article is basically an argument that the scrutiny we are applying to algorithmic decision making should also be applied to human decision making systems. Our objective should be good decisions, whatever the source of the decision.

The introduction to the article is below.

Principles for the Application of Human Intelligence

Recognition of the powerful pattern matching ability of humans is growing. As a result, humans are increasingly being deployed to make decisions that affect the well-being of other humans. We are starting to see the use of human decision makers in courts, in university admissions offices, in loan application departments, and in recruitment. Soon humans will be the primary gateway to many core services.

The use of humans undoubtedly comes with benefits relative to the data-derived algorithms that we have used in the past. The human ability to spot anomalies that are missed by our rigid algorithms is unparalleled. A human decision maker also allows us to hold someone directly accountable for the decisions.

However, the replacement of algorithms with a powerful technology in the form of the human brain is not without risks. Before humans become the standard way in which we make decisions, we need to consider the risks and ensure implementation of human decision-making systems does not cause widespread harm. To this end, we need to develop principles for the application for the human intelligence to decision making.

Read the rest of the article here.

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