Why aren't the most powerful new technologies being used to solve the world's most important problems: hunger, poverty, conflict, inequality, employment, disease? What's missing?
From a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning comes a thought-provoking book that answers these questions. In Link: How Decision Intelligence Connects Data, Actions, and Outcomes for a Better World, Dr. Lorien Pratt explores the solution that is emerging worldwide to take Artificial Intelligence to the next level: Decision Intelligence.
Decision Intelligence (DI) goes beyond AI as well, connecting human decision makers in multiple areas like economics, optimization, big data, analytics, psychology, simulation, game theory, and more. Yet despite the sophistication of these approaches, Link shows how they can be used by you and me: connecting us in a way that supercharges our ability to meet the interconnected challenges of our age.
Pratt tells the stories of decision intelligence pioneers worldwide, along with examples of their work in areas that include government budgeting, space exploration, emerging democracy conflict resolution, banking, leadership, and much more.
Link delivers practical examples of how DI connects people to computers and to each other to help us solve complex interconnected problems. Link explores a variety of scenarios that show readers how to design solutions that change the way problems are considered, data is analyzed, and technologies work together with people.
Technology and academics has accelerated beyond our ability to understand or effectively control them. Link brings technology down to earth and connects it to our more natural ways of thinking. It offers a roadmap to the future, empowering us all to make practical steps and take the best actions to solve the hardest problems.
Industry Reviews
Link is an exercise in abstraction, causality, and modeling. It is about discovering and making visible interdependencies in complex systems. The author distills what she has learned in pithy insights. It takes discipline. You won't regret reading this book. -- Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer
Link is the missing link to our understanding of unintended consequences of many of our decisions and actions. This is a book for the ages, moving both technology (like AI) and human decision making to the next level. Must read. -- V R Ferose, SVP and Head of SAP Engineering Academy
There is an explosion today in the impacts, risks, and opportunities of many decisions by private or governmental entities intended to impact future events. Link is about understanding these decisions and causal relationships. Societal transactions are accelerating: many more than ever are intangible, and there are substantial complexities created by newly discovered information as well as the resulting increase of global interdependencies. Surveillance capitalism, especially as enhanced by AI, is also a substantial risk today. Link is part of the solution: a crucial resource to understand causal chains, especially with the goal of avoiding unintended consequences of decisions involving data and technology. -- Bill Fenwick, Partner Emeritus, Fenwick & West LLP
Pratt, a former computer science professor who works in artificial intelligence and machine learning, discusses decision intelligence and how it can help solve complex problems in areas like business, finance, and economics by connecting humans with technology and data to think about decisions in a new way. She describes how decisions lead to actions that lead to outcomes in the future and how to use a causal decision diagram to make decisions using advanced technologies to solve difficult problems in organizations. She discusses the concept of decisions as artifacts that can be designed and engineered; the role of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and other technologies; how to model complex decisions; how to shift to a decision-centric view; and the future of decision intelligence. -- Annotation (c)2019 * (protoview.com) *
