How AI can Destroy You

Last night, it was do or die for the Toronto Blue Jays. Lose and their season is over, win and they live to fight another day. The good news is that their starting pitcher Jose Berrios was pitching the game of his life. He was striking out the Minnesota Twins and they couldn’t figure him out. With the score 0-0 however in the fourth inning, their manager decided to listen to the computers and analytics. The analysis or the AI was telling him to pull their pitcher and put in someone else. The probability of success was greater with the change the computer was suggesting.

But what AI and the analytics couldn’t measure was the psychological benefit of leaving Berrios in the game. The Blue Jays were empowered. The Minnesota Twins were frustrated with each strikeout. They just couldn’t figure him out. There was a sense and gut feeling that Jose Berrios would lead them to victory. It was his old hometown. He used to play for Minnesota and wanted to prove he was worthy.

The computers and AI couldn’t measure that. It couldn’t measure gut feelings, emotions or will to win. It couldn’t measure the sudden burst of confidence to each Blue Jay with each Berrios strikeout.

AI and analytics can tell you the best predictors based on history. It can’t measure those variables that we can’t even Identify to measure. Will to win, emotion, strength, fortitude, confidence, in the moment power. Very quickly after listening to AI the Twins took the lead and destroyed the Blue Jays.

We are learning more and more about how AI and analytics are being used in medicine and finance. Predictions of what to do are based on a careful analysis of past trends and data. Computers can do that in a second or two.

But what AI and analytics can never do is measure those things we know are true but can’t identify. Momentum in a baseball game is based on emotions. Panic in a stock market based on human instinct that runs counter to successful investing. The gut instinct of a qualified physician who needs to run other tests that are counter to what the AI is telling her.

If you had asked one hundred baseball fans at a coffee shop watching the game what the Blue Jays manager should do in the 4^th inning, the majority would say, let him pitch for as long as he can. He at this moment was the team leader, the emotional battery of all the others. Taking him out would be catastrophic.

Listening to AI when it comes to your investing or health could destroy you or someone you love. Always listen to your gut instinct over any computer-generated conclusion. Just ask the Toronto Blue Jays and the soon to be (hopefully) fired manager. It could save your financial and actual life.