Machine learning and personalized interventions: David Halpern

In today’s episode, we are joined by Chief Executive of the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), David Halpern. He has led the team since its inception in 2010 and was the founding director of the Institute for Government. Between 2001 and 2007, David held tenure at Cambridge and held posts at Oxford and Harvard. He has written several books and papers on areas relating to behavioral insights and wellbeing, including Social Capital (2005), the Hidden Wealth of Nations (2010), Inside the Nudge Unit (2015). David is also co-author of the MINDSPACE report.

In this episode, we discuss the current state of the behavioral science industry and its role within the public and private sectors, as well as predictions for how it will evolve.

Specifically, we discuss:

• Nudging against violence (domestic violence, classroom violence and civil violence)
• What nudging means in 2019 and how it will evolve in the next 10 years
• Behavioral science and machine learning: the implications of personalized interventions
• Nudging the nudgers: making nudging more ethical through enhanced democratic deliberation
• Interfacing public- and private-sector nudging for maximum impact
• The skills and experience you need to work in applied behavioral science
• How nudging should be regulated and who should decide the ethical boundaries of nudging
• The future of the BIT: exciting projects and challenges