Power and Prediction

7 Glued versus Oiled Systems

AI didn’t save us from Covid-19, but it could have. It didn’t because, in the face of uncertainty, many countries followed public health procedures based on rules rather than decisions. We’ve already noted that AI prediction has the potential to move away from rules to decisions. Consequently, the pandemic is a salient place to start our discussion of how AI can facilitate such changes.

That AI didn’t save us from Covid-19 does not mean that AI wasn’t ready but that we weren’t ready for it. In many countries, the traditional rules established by public health authorities in the public sector did not accommodate the type of decision-making that would be required to preserve the economy in the face of an unexpected ...