The Unaccountability Machine with Dan Davies

Thinkers & Ideas

In The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions and How the World Lost Its Mind, Dan Davies examines why companies and governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims they do not want.

Davies is an economist, writer, and former investment banker known for his insightful analysis of finance, corporate governance, and decision-making systems. He has written extensively on topics such as financial fraud, accountability in organizations, and the intersections of economics and management. His latest book combines cybernetics theory and real-world examples to explain how decisions are increasingly made not by accountable individuals, but by systems.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Davies describes the pathologies of failing decision-making systems, explains why we tend not to learn from past mistakes, and outlines why he worries that AI might not improve our capability to make decisions unless we carefully redesign decision systems to tap its potential.

Key topics discussed:

01:03 | Unintended outcomes generated by decision-making systems

07:08 | What we can learn from the theory of cybernetics

09:49 | Pathologies of failing information systems

11:49 | Why we make the same mistakes again and again

14:41 | How AI may impact decision-making

16:39 | Steps toward improving our decision-making systems

Additional inspirations from Dan Davies:

• The Brompton: Engineering for Change, co-authored by William Butler-Adams (The Experiment, 2022)
• Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of the World (Scribner, 2021)
• Back of Mind (Substack)