A responsibility to judge carefully in the era of prediction decision machines - Harvard Business School Digital Initiative

But if the narrative of the present is one of "prediction machines," referencing the book of the same title by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb, the narrative of the future will belong to "decision machines." If the narrative of the present is one of managers who are valued for showing judgment in decision making -- don't tell me whether someone will do well on the job, or whether a new product will win in the marketplace, but tell me instead who I should hire, which products I should bet on -- then the narrative of the future will be one in which we are valued for our ability to judge and shape the decision-making capabilities of machines. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the pursuit of machines that are able to act purposefully to make decisions towards the pursuit of goals. Machines need to be able to predict to decide, but decision making requires much more. Decision making requires bringing together and reconciling multiple points of view.