Ryan Hanley

Speaker & Creator | Founder of Rogue Risk

AI, Data & When to Ask the Right Questions

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In this episode, we’re joined by Helen and Dave Edwards, founders of Sonder Studios and authors of Make Better Decisions: How to Improve Your Decision-Making in the Digital Age, an essential guide to practicing the cognitive skills needed for making better decisions in the age of data, algorithms, and AI.

Do not miss this incredible deep dive into the next generation of artificial intelligence and the insurance industry…

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AI, Data & When to Ask the Right Questions

In this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, we’re joined by Helen and Dave Edwards, founders of Sonder Studios and authors of Make Better Decisions: How to Improve Your Decision-Making in the Digital Age, an essential guide to practicing the cognitive skills needed for making better decisions in the age of data, algorithms, and AI.

Do not miss this incredible deep dive into the next generation of artificial intelligence and the insurance industry…

Episode Highlights:

  • Dave shares that Sonder Studios has been operating since 2019, and it began with the purpose of truly opening people’s minds to the depth of humanity in this digital age. (4:24)
  • Helen explains that data has value once people or machines understand it since humans think in 1-4 dimensions, but machines can think in infinite dimensions. (10:29)
  • Dave discusses that for the value of data to be translated to people, we humans must first understand what it means. (13:37)
  • Helen explains how to determine when to ask the correct questions when presenting people with a single data item that they disagree with. (18:21)
  • Helen explains that they wrote Make Better Decisions because decision making with data is very nuanced and one of the first things to look at is how our feelings are processing information. (28:09)
  • Helen believes it’s important to be able to calibrate your accuracy depending on how well you understand something. (37:37)
  • Dave mentions that one of the nudges in their book is about recognizing who the humans are in the data and understanding what the data representation is. (43:25)
  • Dave explains that success has several layers, and that’s where people get stuck because they don’t know what they’re asking of the data or which experience to depend on. (48:14)
  • Dave mentions that they named the book Make Better Decisions since there isn’t one optimizable solution, heuristic, procedure, or six-step process to make a smart decision, but instead it’s a practice. (1:00:074)

Key Quotes:

  • “We sort of started Sonder studio with the mission of really wanting to open people’s minds of the richness of humans, while we’re in this digital age, you know, that it’s not us being supplanted? It is actually where’s the beauty? And where are the wonderful parts of being human? And how do we help people understand that?” – Dave Edwards
  • “It’s a good idea to have a good understanding of the state of your own knowledge. And that being able to calibrate your accuracy with how well you understand something, is actually a pretty good thing. ” – Helen Edwards
  • “Our premise in our book and our premise around decision making is that there isn’t one optimizable answer, there isn’t one heuristic to follow, there isn’t one process to follow, there isn’t a six-step process to make a good decision. We believe this is truly a practice, which is why we have 50 nudges that help you get better, that’s why we call it Make Better Decisions. ” – Dave Edwards

Resources Mentioned:

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Yours in strength,

Hanley

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