Scientists just published something in Nature that will scare every marketer, leader, and anyone else who thinks they understand human choice.
Scientists just published something in Nature that will scare every marketer, leader, and anyone else who thinks they understand human choice.
Researchers created an AI called "Centaur" that can predict human behavior across ANY psychological experiment with disturbing accuracy. Not just one narrow task. Any decision-making scenario you throw at it.
Here's the deal: They trained this AI on 10 million human choices from 160 different psychology experiments. Then they tested it against the best psychological theories we have.
The AI won. In 31 out of 32 tests.
But here's the part that really got me...
Centaur wasn't an algorithm built to study human behavior. It was a language model that learned to read us. The researchers fed it tons of behavioral data, and suddenly it could predict choices better than decades of psychological research.
This means our decision patterns aren't as unique as we think. The AI found the rules governing choices we believe are spontaneous.
Even more unsettling? When they tested it on brain imaging data, the AI's internal representations became more aligned with human neural activity after learning our behavioral patterns. It's not just predicting what you'll choose, it's learning to think more like you do.
The researchers even demonstrated something called "scientific regret minimization"โusing the AI to identify gaps in our understanding of human behavior, then developing better psychological models.
Can a model based on Centaur be tuned for how customers behave? Companies will know your next purchasing decision before you make it. They'll design products you'll want, craft messages you'll respond to, and predict your reactions with amazing accuracy.
Understanding human predictability is a competitive advantage today. Until now, that knowledge came from experts in behavioral science and consumer behavior. Now, there's Centaur.
Here's my question: If AI can decode the patterns behind human choice with this level of accuracy, what does that mean for authentic decision-making in business? Will companies serve us better with perfectly tailored offerings, or with this level of understanding lead to dystopian manipulation?
What's your take on predictable humans versus authentic choice?
#AI #Psychology #BusinessStrategy #HumanBehavior | 369 comments on LinkedIn