How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms

by Gerd Gigerenzer

Overview

How to stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess, find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500 yards.”

Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry boosters think replacing people with software might make the world a better place—while tech industry critics warn darkly about surveillance capitalism. Despite their differing views of the future, they all seem to agree: machines will soon do everything better than humans. In How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, Gerd Gigerenzer shows why that’s not true, and tells us how we can stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms.

Machines powered by artificial intelligence are good at some things (playing chess), but not others (life-and-death decisions, or anything involving uncertainty). Gigerenzer explains why algorithms often fail at finding us romantic partners (love is not chess), why self-driving cars fall prey to the Russian Tank Fallacy, and how judges and police rely increasingly on nontransparent “black box” algorithms to predict whether a criminal defendant will reoffend or show up in court. He invokes Black Mirror, considers the privacy paradox (people want privacy but give their data away), and explains that social media get us hooked by programming intermittent reinforcement in the form of the “like” button. We shouldn’t trust smart technology unconditionally, Gigerenzer tells us, but we shouldn’t fear it unthinkingly, either.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262370042
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Gerd Gigerenzer is Director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Partner of Simply Rational—the Institute for Decisions. He is the author of Calculated Risks, Gut Feelings, Risk Savvy, and How to Stay Smart in a Smart World (MIT Press).

Read an Excerpt

Technological solutionism is the belief that every societal problem is a “bug” that needs a “fix” through an algorithm. Technological paternalism is its natural consequence, government by algorithms. It doesn’t need to peddle the fiction of a superintelligence; it instead expects us to accept that corporations and governments record where we are, what we are doing, and with whom, minute by minute, and also to trust that these records will make the world a better place. As Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt explains, “The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow’ and ‘What job shall I take?’”23 Quite a few popular writers instigate our awe of technological paternalism by telling stories that are, at best, economical with the truth.24 More surprisingly, even some influential researchers see no limits to what AI can do, arguing that the human brain is merely an inferior computer and that we should replace humans with algorithms whenever possible.25 AI will tell us what to do, and we should listen and follow. We just need to wait a bit until AI gets smarter. Oddly, the message is never that people need to become smarter as well.

I have written this book to enable people to gain a realistic appreciation of what AI can do and how it is used to influence us. We do not need more paternalism; we’ve had more than our share in the past centuries. But nor do we need technophobic panic, which is revived with every breakthrough technology. When trains were invented, doctors warned that passengers would die from suffocation.26 When radio became widely available, the concern was that listening too much would harm children because they need repose, not jazz.27 Instead of fright or hype, the digital world needs better-informed and healthily critical citizens who want to keep control of their lives in their own hands.

23. Daniel and Palmer, “Google’s Goal.”
24. Overstated claims about algorithms without supporting evidence can be found, for instance, in Harari, Homo Deus. I provide examples in chapter 11.
25. See the spectrum of opinions in Brockman, Possible Minds. Also, Kahneman (“Comment,” 609) poses the question whether AI can eventually do whatever people can do: “Will there be anything that is reserved for human beings? Frankly, I don’t see any reason to set limits on what AI can do.” And: “You should replace humans by algorithms whenever possible” (610).
26. Gigerenzer, Risk Savvy.
27. On fear cycles, see Orben, “Sisyphean Cycle.”

Table of Contents

Introduction ix
Part I: The Human Affair with AI
1 Is True Love Just a Click Away? 3
2 What AI Is Best At: The Stable-World Principle 21
3 Machines Influence How We Think about Intelligence 41
4 Are Self-Driving Cars Just Down the Road? 49
5 Common Sense and AI 73
6 One Data Point Can Beat Big Data 93
Part II: High Stakes
7 Transparency 113
8 Sleepwalking into Surveillance 139
9 The Psychology of Getting Users Hooked 173
10 Safety and Self-Control 187
11 Fact or Fake? 199
Acknowledgments 227
Notes 229
Bibliography 255
Index 285

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This is a masterful weaving of different facets of artificial intelligence that manages to cover some extremely complex topics in a way that non-specialists can readily understand. It is also highly readable—Gigerenzer is such a good writer, and his examples are very compelling. I think it is an essential read because it provides an important perspective on AI for all those who are tired of being bombarded by hype and exaggerated claims, and for those who are rightfully worried about the dangers to society that are posed by AI.”
—Gary Klein, Ph.D., author of Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, and CEO of ShadowBox LLC

“In clear, unencumbered, and unpretentious prose, Gigerenzer demystifies the logic of our ‘smart’ societies. And despite cataloguing many depressing examples of the ambitions of big tech, the overall message of the book—and indeed the author’s view of human nature—is empowering.”
—John Zerilli, University of Oxford, co-author of A Citizen’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press)

“Gerd Gigerenzer is the most original and coherent follower of the bounded rationality tradition of Herbert Simon in economics and decision making. This inspiring book dispels many myths about the predictive power of connectionist AI,  describes its failures to tackle  uncertain and unstable phenomena, and relaunches the simulationist psychological approach as the best way towards an ethical and Human AI.”
—Riccardo Viale, Full Professor in Behavioral Sciences and Cognitive Economics, University of Milano Bicocca and Secretary General of Herbert Simon Society

Editorial Reviews

"Anyone worried about the age of AI will sleep better after reading this intelligent account."
— Publishers Weekly

“A seriously compelling, eye opening, and well researched investigation.”
— Library Journal

“Persuasive.”
— The Times UK 

“Gigerenzer deftly explains the limits and dangers of technology and AI.”
— New Scientist

"Essential reading for anyone exposed to technology that shapes our behavior rather than meeting our needs. In other words, it is essential reading for all of us.”
— Morning Star

From the Publisher