“We have seen in the past few days how important it is to make the right decisions,” said Mayer-Schönberger in Oxford in a telephone interview with a view to politics and the latest lockdown. “We have also seen that it becomes difficult when you stiffen up.” A concrete example: The federal government was extremely insistent that the “pandemic for vaccinated people was over”.
This is the slogan that the former Chancellor and ÖVP leader Sebastian Kurz had given his party. But if you stiffen up, there are fewer possible solutions than if you were open, according to the scientist. The choice of options is artificially restricted. The book aims to show how people in the age of algorithms can make better decisions and how framing – i.e. the application of mental models – ensures human survival in the age of machines and unrest.
So why can one be trapped in the application of certain mental models in frames? “Once you have a hammer, you see a lot of nails that you can drive in,” replies the scientist. “We humans are comfortable and lazy. Known solutions are reflexively resorted to without considering whether this is too narrow. We would have the possibilities in our heads. “
An Austrian example of a new framing is the ascent of Mount Everest by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. “Everyone said that it couldn’t be done without oxygen,” said the professor. As a result, the two adventurers would have changed the previous frame: Do not climb slowly with a long expedition, because then the lack of oxygen becomes fatal – but rather quickly up and down in a small group. That succeeded. “It’s about goal-oriented dreaming,” says the expert.
“We humans would simply have the opportunity to make much better decisions,” says Mayer-Schönberger. As a presentable example from the world of companies, he cites the US electrical manufacturer Tesla’s handling of the global shortage of computer chips. . Company boss Elon Musk would have seen this coming – like the German auto industry, for example. The American has decided to convert his company’s cars so that they work with other chips that are more readily available. This actually only required software changes. The German carmakers, on the other hand, had turned to politics, demanding more European, sovereign semiconductor manufacturers. Consequence: “Tesla can currently manufacture electric cars, BMW for example not to the desired extent.” (APA / red)
