Noise pollution—Humans are imperfect, inconsistent decision-makers

In their new book, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein offer strategies for improvement 。

Not only do individuals differ with their peers, they often fail to agree with themselves.?Wine experts tasting the same samples for?a second time scored fewer than one in five?identically.?Four?lout of five fingerprint examiners altered their original identification decision when presented with contextual information that should not have?been a factor?in matching prints.?In one medical study, assessing angiograms,?physicians disagreed with their earlier?judgments more than half the time.

Lout??n. /la?t/舉止粗野的男人（或男孩）

angiogram 英 /??nd?????ɡr?m/?n. [特醫(yī)] 血管造影片

Noise is sometimes good.?When different investors size?up?a trade?or?book reviewers reach different assessments,?the diversity of opinion is beneficial.?But more commonly it creates problems.?In?law noise means unfairness.?In business it can be costly.

size?up??v. 打量；估計(jì)……的大??；判斷；（使）符合要求或規(guī)格；評(píng)估

book reviewer：書評(píng)家

Yet it can be reduced.?The authors' remedies?include a?"noise?audit"?to measure the degree of disagreement on the?same cases,?to quantify the variation that is?usually invisible.?They also call for better?"decision hygiene"?such as designating an observer for?group decisions,?to prevent common biases and noisy judgments.?For example,?they can ensure that?participants in a team reach independent?assessments before coming together as a group to aggregate their decisions.

remedy ???/?rem?di/??1.?處理方法；改進(jìn)措施；補(bǔ)償??There is no simple remedy for unemployment. 失業(yè)問(wèn)題沒(méi)有簡(jiǎn)單的解決辦法。2.療法；治療；藥品??a herbal remedy 草藥?3.(律) ~ (against sth) （通過(guò)法律程序的）解決方法，救濟(jì)??Holding copyright provides the only legal remedy against unauthorized copying. 持有版權(quán)是制止盜版的唯一法律手段。

Another solution is to?dispense with?people altogether. Statistical?models, pre-determined rules and algorithms in many cases are more?accurate than human?judgment.?The authors welcome artificial intelligence to make many decisions in society, but acknowledge that people?are predisposed?to resisting their answers, for?lack of the personal, emotional?quality in decision-making-even if?it leads to?inferior, or?at?least variable?decisions.

dispense with：無(wú)需，免除；省掉

Predispose??v. /?pri?d??sp??z/ ?1.?~ sb to sth/to do sth ?使傾向于；使受…的影響??He believes that some people are predisposed to criminal behaviour. 他認(rèn)為有些人容易犯罪。2.~ sb to sth 使易于患（某種?。?；容易誘發(fā)??Stress can predispose people to heart attacks. 緊張容易使人心臟病發(fā)作。

The trio speaks with credibility. Mr Kahneman is a Nobel laureate whose ideas on bias in?human reasoning have reshaped economics and society ; Mr Sunstein is a?polymath?scholar at Harvar and occasional government official putting his ideas into policy ;Mr Sibony is a former McKinsey partner who teaches decision science at a French business school.Yet despite the book's title, the authors struggled to extract the signal from the noise, so to speak, needing som 400 pages to make their case. A tighter argument would have enhanced the idea they present.

laureate ?n. /?l?ri?t/ 榮譽(yù)獲得者；獲獎(jiǎng)?wù)??a Nobel laureate 諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)獲得者

human reasoning?[人類] 人的推理法?

譯文

Not only do individuals differ with their peers, they often fail to agree with themselves.?Wine experts tasting the same samples for?a second time scored fewer than one in five?identically.?Four?lout?of five fingerprint examiners altered their original identification decision when presented with contextual information that should not have?been a factor?in matching prints.?In one medical study, assessing angiograms,?physicians disagreed with their earlier?judgments more than half the time.

不僅個(gè)人與他人存在差異，自己個(gè)人判斷也存在偏差。葡萄酒專家第二次品嘗同樣的樣品時(shí)，評(píng)分一樣的幾乎不足五分之一。當(dāng)提供的背景信息是匹配指紋的無(wú)關(guān)因素時(shí)，5個(gè)指紋鑒定師中有4個(gè)蠢蛋改變了原來(lái)的鑒定決定。在一項(xiàng)評(píng)估血管造影的醫(yī)學(xué)研究中，醫(yī)生有超過(guò)一半的時(shí)間不同意他們之前的判斷。

Noise is sometimes good.?When different investors?size?up?a trade?or?book reviewers reach different assessments,?the diversity of opinion is beneficial.?But more commonly it creates problems.?In?law noise means unfairness.?In business it can be costly.

噪音有時(shí)候是有益處的。當(dāng)不同的投資者評(píng)估交易或者書評(píng)家得出不同的評(píng)價(jià)時(shí)，多樣性的意見(jiàn)是有好處的。但更多的時(shí)候是產(chǎn)生問(wèn)題。在法律范疇內(nèi)，噪音意味著不公平；在商業(yè)領(lǐng)域，噪音可能會(huì)是高成本的。

Yet it can be reduced.?The authors'?remedies?include a?"noise?audit"?to measure the degree of disagreement on the?same cases,?to quantify the variation that is?usually invisible.?They also call for better?"decision hygiene"?such as designating an observer for?group decisions,?to prevent common biases and noisy judgments.?For example,?they can ensure that?participants in a team reach independent?assessments before coming together as a group to aggregate their decisions.

但噪音是可以減少的。作者的補(bǔ)救措施包括“噪音審計(jì)”，用來(lái)衡量同一案件中分歧的程度，以量化通?？床灰?jiàn)的差異。他們還呼吁更好的“決策衛(wèi)生”，比如為群體決策指定一名觀察員，以防止共同的偏見(jiàn)和嘈雜的判斷。例如，他們可以確保團(tuán)隊(duì)中的參與者在作為一個(gè)整體做決策之前達(dá)成獨(dú)立的評(píng)估。

Another solution is to?dispense with?people altogether. Statistical?models, pre-determined rules and algorithms in many cases are more?accurate than human?judgment.?The authors welcome artificial intelligence to make many decisions in society, but acknowledge that people?are?predisposed?to resisting their answers, for?lack of the personal, emotional?quality in decision-making-even if?it leads to?inferior, or?at?least variable?decisions.

另一個(gè)解決辦法是完全不用人。統(tǒng)計(jì)模型、預(yù)先確定的規(guī)則和算法在很多情況下比人類的判斷更準(zhǔn)確。作者擁抱人工智能在社會(huì)上做出許多決定，但也承認(rèn)，人們傾向于抵制他們的答案。因?yàn)槿斯ぶ悄茉谧鰶Q定時(shí)缺乏個(gè)人的、情感的質(zhì)量——即使它導(dǎo)致劣質(zhì)，或者至少是可變的決定。

The trio speaks with credibility. Mr Kahneman is a Nobel?laureate?whose ideas on bias in?human reasoning?have reshaped economics and society ; Mr Sunstein is a?polymath?scholar at Harvar and occasional government official putting his ideas into policy ;Mr Sibony is a former McKinsey partner who teaches decision science at a French business school.Yet despite the book's title, the authors struggled to extract the signal from the noise, so to speak, needing som 400 pages to make their case. A tighter argument would have enhanced the idea they present.

這三人的講話具有說(shuō)服力。Kahneman教授是一位諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)得主，他關(guān)于人類推理中的偏見(jiàn)的觀點(diǎn)重塑了經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)和社會(huì)；Sunstein先生是哈佛大學(xué)博學(xué)多才的學(xué)者，偶爾也會(huì)成為政府官員，將自己的想法付諸實(shí)踐；Sibony曾是麥肯錫的合伙人，現(xiàn)在在法國(guó)的一所商學(xué)院教授決策科學(xué)。然而，盡管書名如此，作者們還是努力從噪音中提取出信號(hào)，也就是說(shuō)，他們需要400頁(yè)的篇幅來(lái)證明自己的觀點(diǎn)。一個(gè)更嚴(yán)密的論證會(huì)加強(qiáng)他們所提出的觀點(diǎn)的可信度。