The Decision-Making of Intelligent Machines: Conquering Human Bias

Every decision a person makes has an ulterior motive – an alternative or extrinsic reason for doing something.

A study done at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, says, “it’s estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day. Each decision, of course, carries certain consequences with it that are both good and bad.”

Humans have biases. Bias is embedded in our brains, whether we notice it or not. We tend to favor simplicity and use several different decision-making strategies to get there.

Decisions can be made on impulse or comfort, or compliance. They may also be made by delegating the decision to somebody else. Humans can ignore or deflect certain choices. Decisions can be made with a balanced approach, weighing every option. Decisions can also be made based on the level of impact they have. Many decisions factor in combining these methods, so the rhyme and reason that led us somewhere are challenging to pinpoint.

The age-old question in AI: What about machines making decisions?

Biases have existed since the beginning of technology, and when making decisions for the betterment of your business, one must recognize how human cognitive bias may play a role.

When deploying an intelligent AI system, it is essential to be aware of biases within their systems because this could lead to unideal situations and poor decision-making for your enterprise.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning make daily decisions for giant corporations – within employee workflows, customer interactions, and even in our personal lives with navigation, social media, voice assistant technology, and so much more.

As we reach a turning point in AI, tools continue to be developed to help tame cognitive bias so machines don’t make decisions exactly the way humans do – sometimes out of impulse and selfishness. While we want machines to operate like humans, humans can turn off prejudices and biases if they put effort into doing so. Machines learn from humans and data and can’t always suitably flip the switch for businesses. This tells us that humans need to train their systems with quality and diverse sets of training data so machines can be lifelong learners like the rest of us.

Intelligent AI systems like Mindbreeze InSpire bring ultimate decision-making to the forefront of your operations without suffering from confirmation bias.

For more on the subject, we urge you to check out some reading materials below.

https://inspire.mindbreeze.com/blog/how-to-help-tame-cognitive-bias-in-your-ai-system

https://inspire.mindbreeze.com/blog/human-cognitive-bias-and-its-role-in-ai