How to Move Up When the Only Way is Down: Lessons from Artificial Intelligence for Overcoming Your Local Maximum
Judah Taub
Wiley (October 2024)
The essence of decision-making and problem-solving in the Age of AI
I agree with Jonathan Rosenfeld: “We are now at the precipice of the third age of intelligence — the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this epoch, we will face radically new and diverse forms of intelligence. And for the first time, these intelligence agents will have evolving goals of their own. These intelligences can and will self-improve — unshackled by their corporal underp=inninbgs. This is not a failure of silicon alone; this is a future of rewriting biology as well. Most importantly, it is a future of nonhuman intelligence, far surpassing our own.” (Page viii)
According to Judah Taub, How to Move Up When the Only Move Is Down “is a tool to observe problems in a new way, and it is a mechanism to monitor the long-term health of an individual, corporate, or societal trajectory. To harness the full impact of the concept, we will explore the numerous techniques, typically taken from the computing world, to recognize, solve for, and avoid a local Maximum. Though we are not all computer programmers, we are Johns, Lucys, and Freds, looking for tools to help guide us in the hardest decisions we have to make.”
These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the nature and scope of Taub’s coverage:
o The Highest Mountain (Pages 7-15 and 133-143)
o Dusting Off an Old Invention (23-25)
o Agility to Navigate the Unexpected (51-64)
o Skin to the Game (57-61)
o The Mountain Within — The Psychology of a Local Maximum (65-85)
o Trapped by the Mental Output Gap (74-75)
o Maybe the Opposite Is Right (78-81)
o Time: The Fourth Dimension (87-101)
o Why Now? (97-99)
o Global Maximum Equilibrium vs. Sedlf-Interest (103-105)
o Optimizing for the Group (105-107)
o Dangerous Mountains (117-131)
o Using Local Maximum to Your Advantage (133-143)
o Fair Play of Global Supremacy? (137-142)
o Education: Adaptive vs. Fixed (146-151)
o Globalization: The Costs of Standardization (151-157)
o Governance: Democratic Rule Is a Local Maximum (157-164)
o Healthcare: Reactive vs.Preventative (164-167)
o Tech Disruption: The Future Relies on Confronting Local Maximums (167-173)
o Conclusion: Our Own Mountains (185-188)
Obviously, no brief commentary such as mine could do full justice to the value of the information, insights, and c counsel that Judah Taub provides. However, I hope I have at least indicated why I think so highly of this book, one that I strongly recommend to all senior-level executives and those who aspire to become one as well as to those now preparing for a career in business or who have only recently embarked on one. Bravo!
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I offer these two together suggestions while you are reading How to Move Up When the Only Move Is Down: First, highlight key passages. Also, perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to the “Little Byte of Data Science” mini-commentaries that are strategically inserted within Judah Taub’s lively and eloquent narrative. (See pages 14-15, 30-31, 48-50, 62-64, 85-85, 99-101, 113-115,130-131, and 142-144).
These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite frequent reviews of key material later.