Conversations about AI seem to have infused every field of inquiry, but are those conversations focused enough to be productive?
“Because AI is like a giant octopus with tentacles going everywhere, people want to write big hot takes. But more than enough people are waxing philosophic about the future of the world," says SFI External Professor Scott Page (University of Michigan). "Something that SFI faculty do instead is address questions in a really careful way.”
In December, following a broader virtual discussion, Page led a small group of industry professionals to consider such a question: when does AI add value to a decision?
It was the first virtual seminar for ACtioN Academy, a yearlong SFI program helping industry leaders explore how complexity science applies to their work. The inaugural cohort met in October in New York and will reunite for in-person and online seminars throughout the year.
During Page’s seminar, he introduced a recent paper, “Replace, augment, disrupt: AI & organizational decision-making.” Then participants discussed why you must reason through a decision before you can assess AI’s suggestions — and how to fix misalignments when you and an AI disagree.
“My research studies when and how diversity improves decision-making, and this ACtioN Academy discussion was a classic example. It was great to have a conversation with smart people outside academia. I had a deep, applied follow-up call with a participant,” says Page. “Those interactions — between practitioners and scientists — are the lifeblood of ACtioN.”
Page’s talk grew out of a series of SFI Applied Complexity events on measuring AI impact in the real world. This coming June, Google DeepMind will co-organize their second multiday session with SFI, where researchers, regulators, and policymakers will discuss “AI and Multi-scale Human Intelligence.”
“Building community among rigorous and diverse thinkers has always been part of SFI’s secret sauce. Regular ACtioN programming does this broadly, but ACtioN Academy is helping us forge deep connections among a small group of diverse practitioners. So far, this experiment is off to a roaring start,” says SFI Vice President for Applied Complexity Will Tracy.