Wisdom of Crowds

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Do you think of low intelligence as yet a third, independent source of error? Or is that somehow sumed in bias and noise? You mean, plain stupidity? In some cases it would really be necessarily the same as either bias or noise. And it's not exactly bias, and its not necessarily, it would contribute more to noise than to bias. When people collect too little information or are swayed by the first thing that comes to mind, you get noise rather than bias.

If you enjoy Conversation with Tyler, consider making a year-end donation at ConversationsWithTyler.com/donate. All gifts will support the show’s production, including future live podcast recordings like this one.

You might be surprised by what occupies Daniel Kahneman’s thoughts. “You seem to think that I think of bias all the time,” he tells Tyler. “I really don’t think of bias that much.” These days, noise might be the concept most on Kahneman’s mind. A forthcoming book, coauthored with Cass Sunstein and “a brilliant Frenchman you haven’t heard of” is about how random variability affects our decision-making. And while we’ve spent a lot of time studying how bias causes error in judgment, Kahneman says, we aren’t thinking nearly enough about the problem of noise.

In November, Kahneman joined Tyler for a live conversation about bias, noise and more, including happiness, memory, the replication crisis in psychology, advice to CEOs about improving decision-making, superforecasters, the influence of Freud, working in a second language, the value of intuition, and why he can’t help you win arguments with a spouse.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded November 12th, 2018 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.