Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Kahneman: Algorithms improve decisions better than human judgment

Daniel Kahneman · TKP Insights: Learning and Thinking · Nov 7, 2023 · at 8:51

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman explains methods for improving decision-making accuracy to Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project.

0:00 / 0:23exact quote · 23.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“If you really want to improve the quality of decision making, use algorithms. I mean, whenever, wherever you can if you can replace judgments by rules and algorithms, they'll do better. Now, there's big social costs to trusting, allowing algorithms to make decisions, but the decisions are likely to be better.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Daniel Kahneman

Disclosure
Kahneman: Unconscious priming studies from 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' failed empirical replication
“Priming, and unconscious priming, and so, just hasn't held up in replication, and I believed it, and I wrote it as if it were true, because, you know, the evidence suggested it, and in fact, I thought that you had to accept it, because that was published evide…”
Daniel Kahneman Jul 22, 2025 ▶ 1:07:50 Daniel Kahneman: Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than You
Assertion Supported
Kahneman: Income above $70,000 raises life satisfaction but not emotional happiness
“The research I did with Angus Deaton at Princeton, famous economist, we showed that in terms of happiness, in terms of emotional tone, positive and negative, Having a lot of money doesn't make you happier, but being poor makes you miserable. So that's above a …”
Daniel Kahneman Oct 15, 2019 ▶ 10:38 #68 Daniel Kahneman: Putting Your Intuition on Ice
Assertion Supported
Kahneman: Some evidence cited in 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' has been discredited
“There's been a replication crisis in psychology. And some of the stuff that I really believed in when I wrote Thinking Fast and Slow, some of that evidence has been discredited.”
Daniel Kahneman Oct 15, 2019 ▶ 1:01:00 #68 Daniel Kahneman: Putting Your Intuition on Ice
Insight
Kahneman: People prioritize narrative life satisfaction over real-time emotional happiness
“What people really want in their life is they don't seem to care about how happy they'll be. They seem to want to be satisfied with their life. They seem to want to have a good story about their life.”
Daniel Kahneman Jul 22, 2025 ▶ 15:29 Daniel Kahneman: Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than You
Assertion Supported
Kahneman: Incomes above $70,000 boost life satisfaction but not emotional happiness
“The research I did with Angus Deaton at Princeton, famous economist, we showed that in terms of happiness, in terms of emotional tone, positive and negative, Having a lot of money doesn't make you happier, but being poor makes you miserable. So, that's above a…”
Daniel Kahneman Jul 22, 2025 ▶ 16:12 Daniel Kahneman: Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than You
Insight
Kahneman: Anyone highly optimistic about behavior change is deluded
“I think changing behavior is extremely difficult. There are a few tips and, you know, a few guidelines about how to do that, but anybody who is very optimistic about changing behavior is just deluded. It's hard to change other people's behavior. It's very hard…”
Daniel Kahneman Jul 22, 2025 ▶ 18:23 Daniel Kahneman: Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than You
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.