Next-gen decision support

Our future depends on the choices we make

What is the best choice now?

Choices made by societies over the past centuries have caused multiple planetary crises and led us to the brink of local and global catastrophes. We are living deep in the buffer zone of the life supporting systems of our planet without knowing how large this buffer really is. There is increasing recognition that we have to make better choices to move toward a future in which life, including human life, can thrive on a healthy planet. At this moment, the world is moving farther away from the trajectory that international bodies have outlined as desirable, despite increasingly frequent warnings from the planet and the scientific community. Nation-states have given themselves targets, but the leaders and the populace have not made the decisions necessary to meet those targets. We must determine how to incentivize people and decision-makers to not just commit in the abstract but to make the decisions that allow them to meet those targets. And we actually have options for solutions to most of the problems we have created.

Given the urgency of the problems we are dealing with and the fact that, in principle, we have options to respond to them, it might seem like a straightforward process to change the decisions we make, but the simplicity of the phrasing conceals the complexity of the undertaking. For decision-makers acting in good faith, selecting the right pathway, the right policy, is far from a clear task. On scales local to global, decision-makers are encumbered by their own beliefs and values, as well as those of their constituents. They are charged with weighing alternative options, considering opportunity costs, assessing risks, and coping simultaneously with uncertainty and urgency. And they are expected to have the capacity to imagine the outcomes of a policy or set of policies in a complex adaptive system with multiple, interdependent stressors.

Decision support is a critical component of science-informed policies. And academia is the primary knowledge generator of society. As such, it has an obligation and mandate to support factbased decision-making. However, knowledge production does not equal policy action as it is only one of many inputs that affects decision-making. Additionally, in our increasingly interconnected world, scientists and scholars must learn to convey partial knowledge to aid officials, particularly in times of crisis. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic serves as an illustration and case study of the difficulties of conveying information and selecting appropriate policies in a time of high uncertainty and unknowns, with the overlapping challenge of misinformation and disinformation supplanting the truth. Nimbleness is required in a crisis where facts may be limited, yet still point in a specific direction. Academia must seek out data for action by policymakers. Knowledge generators have to learn to convey knowledge, even if it’s not yet complete.

The Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory TM is designed to better understand societal will and how to incentivise societies toward actions that will enable a thriving future for all. The laboratory is committed to developing high-quality decision support tools for a future of opportunity. The laboratory’s Decision Theater serves as the prototype to help governing bodies make the best choice with present-day information. When Decision Theater launched in 2007, it was far ahead of its time. It served as a collaborative aid for visualization and real-time decision-making. As it enhanced its capability to include scenario building, it began to enable forecasting and modeling. The physical space was a convenient site for decision debates and engagement among multiple stakeholders.

Its next iteration, Decision Theater 3.0 or DT3, will turn the model into an indispensable tool for imagining a just, sustainable future and acting on it. It can become a virtual participant in critical policy discussions, furthering its ability to be a real factor in

decision-making processes. To be effective, DT3 will require massive amounts of real-time data that can be sorted, selected and incorporated by an intelligent database to provide compelling visualizations and models of alternative pathways. Then, through augmented intelligence, DT3 will select the data, algorithms and models and return results as close to real time as possible. Results will continue to adapt with newly updated data points. But this is not all that is needed. DT3 will also incorporate the “human factor.” This means two things. First, we can no longer model natural processes without the effects of human actions and decisions. And second, modeling different scenarios and intervention points requires that a better understanding of decision processes becomes an integral part of research agenda development.

In its full capacity, DT3 would provide decision-makers with on-demand results and visualizations. It could be programmed to couple digital twin functions to provide policymakers and elected officials the opportunity to simulate overlapping systems and “see” change. As a virtual asset, it can be used for engagement in places as varied as the United Nations to neighborhood associations interested in better understanding what a policy means for their constituency. Read more about how two of our scientists, Manfred Laubichler and Patricia Solis, are looking at DT3 in this edition.

To allow people to make the best decision now, decision support needs to be responsive, current and adaptive to inputs from multiple systems and interacting stressors. It must also be accessible, trustworthy and globally relevant. That goal underlines the efforts underway at the Global Futures Laboratory, which will partner with local, national and international entities to support societal transitions through cutting-edge decision support.

Peter Schlosser

Vice President and Vice Provost, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, Arizona State University