MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Artificial Intelligence Brings Out the Worst and the Best in Us

I’ll never forget something that psychologist Daniel Kahneman said a couple of years ago at a people analytics conference. The keynote was largely about how algorithms can reduce “noise” (random, irrelevant factors that cloud our judgment) when we’re rating job candidates and trying to predict people’s performance. About halfway through, Kahneman made a quick, almost offhand comment that really struck me: He said he was “quite worried” about AI’s dark, dystopian possibilities, despite its great potential for good.

The better AI becomes at making decisions, the less we’ll need human judgment — and that, he suggested, will threaten the power structure in organizations. Leaders won’t like that, so they’ll resist adopting the technology for their biggest, most important decisions.