AI for Retail

CHAPTER 11OODA Loops

If you want to automate anything, whether you know it or not, you must apply the OODA loop (see Figure 11.1). This is one of the most important fundamentals in automation.

The OODA loop was invented by John Boyd, a fighter pilot and military strategist in the twentieth century, and his system informs much of our military strategy to this day. Little did Boyd know that the OODA loop would have massive parallel for automated AI systems. The premise of the OODA loop was to give structure to decision‐ making so you could make decisions much faster and more informed than your opponent. Like being able to play two moves in chess for every one your opponent plays. That is a huge advantage. Let's hear it from him:

In order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries—or, better yet, get inside [the] adversary's Observation‐Orientation‐Decision‐Action time cycle or loop … Such activity will make us appear ambiguous (unpredictable) thereby generate confusion and disorder among our adversaries—since our adversaries will be unable to generate mental images or pictures that agree with the menacing, as well as faster transient rhythm or patterns, they are competing against.

—John Boyd

FIGURE 11.1 The OODA loop process.

Source: Adapted from The OODA Loop, 2020.

Stages of the OODA Loop

OODA stands for observe, orient, decide, act. Let's ...