Talks & Entertainment

Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients—or that two judges in the same courthouse give markedly different sentences to people who committed the same crime. Now imagine that the doctors and judges make different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday versus Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical.

Wherever there is judgment, there is noise. Yet, most of the time—across medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, performance reviews, and more—individuals and organizations are unaware of it. In Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein explain how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment and offer simple remedies for people to reduce both noise and bias, and ultimately make far better decisions.

Kahneman is a renowned psychologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow. Sibony is a professor of strategy and business policy at HEC Paris, former senior partner at McKinsey & Company, and the author of You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake! Sunstein is a Harvard legal scholar, Senior Counselor and Regulatory Policy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, and bestselling author of Nudge. The authors will be in conversation with Reena Ninan, a journalist who has reported for CBS News, ABC News, and Fox News, and is the host of the podcast “The Rebound” and co-host of “Ask Lisa.”

Thanks to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco for being our promotional partner.