This week we have a podcast appearance from our fearless leader, a helpful guide to which AI model to use for different tasks and 5 decision-making tips.
Hosted by the legend Sebastian David Lees, Chris spoke about the current limitations and future potential of personalised AI education, what skills matter most in a rapidly changing landscape and how robots will be building your next home extension. Probably.
WHICH AI MODEL SHOULD YOU BE USING?
Not all AI models are created equally. Some are much better than others at specific tasks.
But it’s not always clear what the differences are. Case in point, at the time of writing, ChatGPT offers seven different models for you to choose from. Choice overload much?
To the rescue comes this simple guide for which AI model to use for the different things you want to do.
Putting luck to one side, how your life turns out is a result of the choices you make.
Therefore, learning how to make better decisions is something everyone should prioritise.
With this in mind, here are five ways you can improve the likelihood of good outcomes:
1. Automate The Small Stuff
The more small decisions that you need to make, the less likely you will get the big ones right. Why? Decision-making is cognitively effortful. So the more individual decisions you make, the more tired you become, and when you’re exhausted, you make poor decisions.
The solution? Turn your small decisions into habits. For example, Toto Wolff, the CEO of the Mercedes F1 team, eats the same breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Doing so frees up his mental bandwidth for more complex decisions.
2. The Newspaper Headline Test
Making tough decisions is never easy. One helpful tool is to imagine the information appearing on the front page of a newspaper. And then asking yourself, ‘Would I feel comfortable about this?
The ‘newspaper headline test’ is a simple way to assess the integrity and transparency of your decisions. If you’d be embarrassed, ashamed, or uncomfortable seeing your decision on the front page, it’s probably ethically questionable.
3. Emotional Distancing
When making decisions, we can sometimes overestimate the long-term emotional impact. In other words, we think we will feel the same way about the decision in the future as we do when we make it. In truth, this is rarely the case.
A simple book, a clever tool to overcome this, was invented by Suzy Welch, which she called the 10/10/10 technique. It forces you to think about your decisions on three different time scales.
How will you feel about it in 10 minutes?
How will you feel about it in 10 months?
How will you feel about it in 10 years?
These different time frames force you to ‘emotionally’ distance yourself from your decisions, giving you greater clarity of mind.
4. Learn From The Mistakes Of Others
Making mistakes is an expensive way to learn. A better strategy is to observe the poor decisions made by others and learn from them so that you can avoid similar mistakes in the future.
For example, you don’t need to take on huge amounts of personal debt to understand that it’s a bad decision. You can read about it and then avoid borrowing money.
This is why a book is one of the best investments you can make. For the price of a few cups of coffee, you can learn from the experiences of thousands of people throughout history. And because human behaviour is unchanging, the decisions they made will guide you when making your own.
5. Opportunity Cost
When deciding to do something, you’re also making a decision not to do something else. Because you’re so focused on that one decision, you don’t think about the other choices you could make. E.g. If you buy that secondhand car, you’re passing up the opportunity of spending that money on something else, like a holiday.
Understanding opportunity cost helps you make better decisions because it:
Clarifies trade-offs: Every choice involves a sacrifice. Opportunity cost helps you see the hidden cost of what you don’t choose, not just the benefits of what you do.
Improves resource allocation: Whether it's time, money, or energy, thinking in terms of opportunity cost helps you allocate your resources where they'll give you the most value.
Prevents short-term thinking: It encourages long-term thinking by highlighting future gains you might miss by focusing on immediate rewards.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The quality of our lives is the sum of decision quality plus luck”.
