Life Decisions Inc
Larry Simmons
This is not fiction even if you want it to be. I too don’t like the implications of AI software making life decisions for us. Oh well. Humans are irrelevant?
Larry Simmons, my neighbor, knew he was awful at making big decisions, even though he was smart…I guess. He was a professor in the English Department at Colby College. He could write a gifted analysis of Faulkner’s body of work, but had trouble deciding on a family vacation, whether his struggles with his kidneys were real, ‘should I get another opinion? should I move my retirement funds, should I leave Colby for Columbia University.
He knew he struggled with big decisions but nevertheless rarely took adv ice from his wife or grown son and daughter who he acknowledged were smart, successful, and had his interests at heart. He told them all, “I’ll decide what is best, at least for me.”
He wished that making big decisions was more like what pair of trousers he should wear today, or when in a restaurant ….what should he order from the menu.
He should have decided to get a second opinion about his kidneys and he was glad he didn’t move his retirement funds.
Kidneys. His old doc practiced classic clinical medicine and relied less on masses of clinical lab data. Larry thought to himself ‘Too bad’. The data analysis that was available told a story different from his doc of many years and that data may have saved his life. Larry was impressed.
During the semester break at Colby he thought about his kidney experience and based on that decided he would do something that for him was daring. He would rely on expert knowledge and huge amounts of data to make all varieties of important decisions in his life.
AI had come a long way. Hugely successful powerful programs could organize, scan enormous data sets, solve problems, predict outcomes, on and on in ways that exceeded what mortals could do in making the best problem-solving decisions. Therefore, he was not surprised when a company came out with a software product that was tailored to improve the lives of just about anyone, for a price, a steep one.
The product was called Life Decisions (LD) and it was designed to do just that. A subscription to Life Decisions was available to anyone. It required that the user provide LD with the vast history of events in a client’s life, along with goals, things they liked, disliked, skills, perspectives, values, and each data file was regularly updated with new knowledge about a client. A client could request a decision analysis about anything in their lives. The material detailing the LD program also reminded clients that to ignore a decision made using the LD program was to do so at the client’s own peril. “The program is superior to a decision you make based on fleeting emotion.
Larry Simmons’s life changed, and I guess is still changing. He had lost weight, seemed younger, more vibrant, more animated, happier. Quite a ‘face lift’. He is no longer at Colby, no longer married to his wife and is well on his way to a career change. When I saw him last, I asked him what it was like putting much of his life in the hands of an AI decision-making program. The first thing he said was “At first it was scary to relinquish control of your ability to make decisions, but then when life started to blossom in ways I could never have imagined….well, I was off and running. I maintain a good relationship with my kids and even my ex-wife. Leaving my Maine winters behind was also a huge plus.”
I wished him good luck and continued to think about his experience with AI decision-making.
Could I do what he did? Not sure but likely not. I would be too scared to give up that much control. Leave his wife on the basis of a computer program decision? That is crazy but ….I just don’t know. How do you decide to do that?
Regrettably, this is not the end of the story. About a year ago Simmons’s son visited Maine and came back to look at his childhood home. The house was a few doors down from my own. What he told me was a bit of a shocker. Simmons was in Florida at a political meeting/rally where he met Sophie Stillman, a recently divorced lawyer, who was active in local politics. They hit it off, an understatement. She was dazzling, bigger than life, funny, with a huge amount of energy. She found Simmons attractive and his written poems moving and seductive.
They were smitten, attracted to one another as if they were 17-year old’s. A torrid affair started and within 2 months they decided to get married.
Life Decisions was not consulted. In fact, the Simmons who was madly love with Sophie and didn’t need Life Decisions for confirmation in asking Sophie to marry him. In fact, he cancelled his costly subscription to Life Decisions, ‘not needed’ he thought.
For the first several weeks the bedroom was a home they never seemed to leave.
Alas, I like the word alas, chance events that weren’t chance at all intervened. Sophie spiraled up into a full blown bipolar manic phase in her life and their relationship came crashing down on both of them. During that time Sophie went on a spending spree that wiped out Simmons’s savings and wiped the smile from his face. They stumbled towards a divorce court and that separation was filled with manic craziness.
Simmons reinstituted subscription to Life Decisions. He asked the software decision maker what to do now separated from a manic wife and broke. The first report that he got back from Life Decisions was “You should have asked us about the wisdom of the relationship with Sophie Stillman. We would have told you ….she is nuts, with a history that predicted the likelihood of a manic episode in her life. Her sexy manic energy seduced you. We will see what we can do to get you out of this hole in your life.
Hearing this account from Simmons’s son left me speechless. What could I say? Sorry? Wow? the role of chance events in life? the power of lust, love, attraction, that determines so many of the life decisions in our life. Can you program that into the Life Decisions making software.
Larry Simmons’s son also told me one other thing, that he visited his father in Florida. That visit was sad, worrisome, awful. He found his father a bit ‘out of it’. He was living in an economy rental in a dreary neighborhood. Had to assume that he was out of funds. He was trying to get his life together with the help of Life Decisions Inc.
Larry Summers showed him how he could maybe become a skilled decision-maker on his own without his damn software. He listed for me some of the areas of knowledge that he had to learn, grasp, to make that possible. It seemed reasonable but making a list is not the same as having acquired the skills to make him whole again. What he listed was:
- How to use advice
- Building mental models for making decisions.
- Breaking down the elements that make good decision making possible
- Self-awareness training
- Elements of thinking and imaging that can be a foundation for changing things about you
- How does the brain make all this work or not work
- The rest of what is needed to be a super decision making are secret and still needs some work.
All I could tell him in response to his list is “good luck”.