[Problem profile] “Improving decision making in key institutions” by The 80,000 Hours team

Governments and other important institutions frequently have to make complex, high-stakes decisions based on the judgement calls of just a handful of people.

Narrated by AI.

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Outline:

(00:15) Summary

(00:38) Our overall view

(02:33) What is this issue?

(06:03) What parts of the problem seem most promising to work on?

(06:45) Forecasting

(12:17) Prediction aggregators and prediction markets

(14:37) Decision-making science

(15:34) Improving corporate governance at key private institutions

(16:53) Improving how governments work

(19:42) What are the major arguments against improving decision making being a pressing issue?

(19:48) It's unclear what the best interventions are -- and some are not very neglected.

(22:40) You might want to just work on a pressing issue more directly.

(24:48) It's often difficult to get change in practice

(26:10) There might be better ways to improve our ability to solve the world's problems

(27:13) What can you do in this area?

(28:04) 1. More rigorously testing existing techniques that seem promising

(32:51) 2. Doing more fundamental research to identify new techniques

(33:53) 3. Fostering adoption of the best proven techniques in high-impact institutions

(38:12) 4. Directing more funding towards research in this area

(39:17) Learn more

(39:20) Top recommendations

(40:09) Further recommendations

The original text contained 9 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
September 25th, 2017

Last updated:
March 25th, 2023

Source:
https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/improving-institutional-decision-making

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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