Some organisations think data-driven decisions lead to innovation.
In other words, these organisation can’t see that what matters is to foster the possibility to create what yet does not exist - the improbable as philosopher Stiegler and Blanchot wrote.
If your organisation thinks that they can look at data (what is already computed, thus belongs to the sphere of events that are probable) to create what does not yet exist, they might run into a dead end.
Another way to look at this conundrum is to ask: how can your people think “outside the box” (of what’s improbable) if they only look “inside the box” (what has been computed; the probable)?
And so, along the same train of thought: will sticking to data-driven decisions (computation) undermine the possibilities for your organisation to create what yet does not exist (the improbable)?
Does relying exclusively on computations to make decisions and else risk putting your organisation on a regressional slope?
One more comment, thinking of AI: what are the implications of further computing the outcomes of our exteriorisations, or interactions, if we can see that what does not exist yet is improbable?1
The interview Bernard Stiegler on Automatic Society, as told to Anaïs Nony, The Third Rail Quarterly 5, 16-17, accompanied by comments of philosopher Daniel Ross, helped me see this.↩︎