AI has become integrated into our lives. I’m sure we will continue discussing whether it’s constructive or destructive for quite some time. Certainly it’s been a boon to science and medicine. But does AI squelch creativity? Plagiarize? Important discussions to have. Surely we’ve all benefited.

But to date, AI doesn’t enable a user’s brain to discover and apply their core values for personal decision making.

HOW VALUES-BASED DECISIONS ARE MADE

When people ask AI for advice, they’re largely provided with amalgams of historic information. But this doesn’t enable the neurochemical, very complex, values-based and largely unconscious decision process that would guide users to the:

• • core values-criteria in their brain that
  • form the unique, unconscious, and subjective outputs (actions, decisions, behaviors) that
  • emerge when a mixture of the brain’s limbic system, prefrontal cortex, and dopamine
  • cull choice criteria from the decision maker’s personal decision making that includes

o  history

o  mental models

o  personal beliefs

o  time comparators

o  private assumptions

o  norms/culture

• • and represent the neural activities
  • beyond external sources.

In other words, there’s a whole lotta neural processing that must occur before a personal change decision can be reached. For personal decisions such as

“Should I put my mom into a memory care center now?”

or

“My girlfriend lives near me so maybe I should choose a college near home, but the college I want to attend is across the country. How do I decide where to go to school?”

information doesn’t help, making generative AI a poor choice to facilitate a user’s subjective decision making.

In this paper I’ll simplistically lay out the explanations and elements needed for someone to make a values-based decision – a complex range of circuits and signals, history and processing, that reside within the unconscious and not dependent on information. This will explain the route AI would need to follow to develop a decision facilitation capability. This will explain the route AI would need to follow to develop a decision facilitation capability.

INFORMATION DOESN’T GENERATE PERSONAL DECISIONS

Simplistically, AI uses question prompts to extract information from LLMs. But information is needed in personal decision making only after the criterial portion of the decision is reached.

Don’t get me wrong. Information is vital once values-based criteria are in place. But providing information (from the conscious mind) before the neural work (in the unconscious brain) has been completed causes resistance – the reason sales pitches, leadership requests, coaching interactions face so much opposition: unless the Other’s beliefs, norms, history, assumptions are included, there’s a high probability the Other will resist change.

Decision making is largely unconscious and uniquely personal – a complex, systemic process that involves much neural organization. Until

• the system (the full set of foundational elements – beliefs and mental models – that created and maintain the status quo) understands and agrees to the risk of doing/thinking anything different;
• the system understands the full set of foundational elements that have mitigated the status quo and must be shifted;
• the system understands its risk of change and knows how to manage it with minimal disruption;
• the new is congruent with the core beliefs and values of the system;

no values-based decision will be made regardless of the need or the efficacy of the information. And the time it takes the decision maker to figure all this out is the length of time it takes to “come to a decision”.

To make a personal decision, people must align the presenting facts against their values-based criteria, biases, assumptions, emotions, reasoning approach, future needs, hopes and fears, then understand and manage risks, all before choosing the actions to take. Here’s my book on how to do this for coaching and change management situations.

Sample

WHAT IS A DECISION?

To choose a new action, to ensure any decision is congruent with the system and won’t cause disruption, personal and neural elements at the core of all values-based decisions must be managed:

Mind/brain: AI largely focuses on manipulating information for use in the conscious mind. But the brain (the unconscious) is where decision criteria are stored.

Misinterpreting incoming content: Due to the way brains ‘listen’, people only accurately understand 10-35% of the information offered. I wrote a book on this.

Managing the status quo: We are each comprised of several systems administered by our mechanical brain processes. New decisions threaten the status quo and must be approved by the system so it doesn’t feel at risk.

Repositioning/reevaluating belief hierarchy: Making a final decision involves a process of weighting values, history, assumptions, and cultural norms and comparing them against future gains/losses…a process unique to each individual and largely unconscious.

Comparators: All change/values-based decisions require comparing historic activity and the decisions that led to the status quo.

Once these have been addressed, the risk of change is deemed manageable, and the system feels congruent with the change, users are ready to make a decision and information is needed to provide details.

AI doesn’t address this yet.

A NEW FORM OF QUESTION

AI requires prompts to trigger answers. But the questions currently used prompt historic, amalgamated information and most likely don’t get to the unconscious elements in a user’s brain necessary for values-based decision making.

Although generative AI is set up to manipulate LLMs, it certainly could have a function that sequences and simulates neural processing and actually make values-based decisions quick and efficient for coaching, personal decision-making, customer support. AL Would need a rules-based capability that would lead users through their own neural circuitry.

In 1988, I read Roger Schank’s book Tell Me a Story that said the only way to find an answer that was tucked away in the brain was to pose a good question. But he never explained what a ‘good question’ was.

I had already recognized that questions are biased and assumptive and couldn’t understand how it could discover bias-free answers. I became intrigued by the possibility of generating a question that

• had no biases, assumptions, or principles that would prejudice the answers;
• would get to the specific, unconscious, neural circuits where values-based answers are stored.

As an original thinker, I then spent 10 years figuring out the elements involved to ensure personal decisions could be easily made:

• the need for Responders to shift perceptual positions to minimize unconscious bias;
• the sequence necessary for the Responder to discover their existing values, patterns, specific reference points;
• the route to the specific neural circuits that held the values-based criteria to match a congruent answer;
• the specific words, sequences, and sentence structures that would get to the specific neural circuits where values-based choice criteria could be found and managed for congruent, systemic change;
• the ability to hear/recognize the next question to formulate to enable the listener’s (user’s) brain to take the next step in the multi-step decision-making sequence;
• the specific hierarchy of decision criteria that lead to a values-based decision;

I eventually invented a new form of question (Facilitative Questions™ FQs) that is brain-directional and leads the Other, using specific words in specific sequences, to the specific neural circuits necessary to capture their personal, values-based decision criteria and cause congruent change and values-based decisions.

For AI to facilitate personal decisions, a rules-based FacilitationAI could prompt sequences of self-generated FQs. FacilitationAI can provide new capability for AI in:

• sales
• life/personal coaching;
• personal/team decision making;
• customer feedback.

I’m happy to discuss and provide examples in detail and discuss possibilities with interested AI developers. Please contact me to discuss. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_______________________

If you’re enjoying these Monday Articles, please subscribe to make sure you get them delivered to your inbox on Monday morning. I use no cookies, they’re free, and I never use the database to market. As an original thinker I offer these to share out-of-the-box ideas as part of my life’s work. And I’m always eager to hear your thoughts and start a conversation: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. Enjoy.

_______________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.