Further to that, I've read on several occasions about lone survivors of disasters who report encountering a person who wasn't there who helped them to survive.
The most common I've encountered is the stereotypical tale of "mountain madness" [2] where an injured or lost climber receives help or guidance from an imaginary being (who presumably seemed quite real to them during their escape from peril).
Literature, fiction and cinema are all full of similar tales (not all in mountain scenarios) and so I expect that this "ability" is part of being human.
There would be an evolutionary advantage to be had if the brain was able to access some "hidden partition" containing recovery instructions during times of extreme stress.
Fred Brooks said [1] that there are two types of complexity, accidental and essential. While accidental complexity can be reduced the theory is that the essential complexity cannot.
"Accidental complexity relates to problems which engineers create and can fix; for example, the details of writing and optimizing assembly code or the delays caused by batch processing. Essential complexity is caused by the problem to be solved, and nothing can remove it; if users want a program to do 30 different things, then those 30 things are essential and the program must do those 30 different things."
While OODA is an interesting and increasingly popular concept, it is really only useful when applied to very short intervals of time. You can and should expect that an opponent with "a reasonable amount" of time will make the correct response. In business that timeframe is much longer than the few minutes or seconds a modern aerial duel might be concluded in.
The general idea of OODA is that if you can "play fast" you can beat someone who can otherwise "play better". Think about how blitz chess differs from traditional multi-hour games, even though the rules of play are the same: for example it is often possible to exert time pressure by playing "confusing moves". This concept of "fast play" translates into the business timeframe more as the concept of "agility" (to be contrasted with large-company "inertia"), whereas businesses only try to confuse one another on television or by accident :-)
Concepts similar to OODA but more applicable to a business context and timeframe would include PDCA [1] and DMAIC [2].
PDCA a.k.a. the "Deming cycle" stands for "Plan, Do, Check, Adjust" and is closely related to the concept of "kaizen" [3] (or "continuous improvement"). PDCA happens in timeframes that can best be described as a "short project" (or a "kaizen event").
DMAIC ("Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control") on the other hand is a framework commonly used for larger business interventions where the stakes are higher, more project members are needed, more structure is required and so on. It is a key feature of the Six Sigma [4] approach as well as Lean Six Sigma [5].
Note: I'm sure there are other valid approaches too. I'm just mentioning the ones I am familiar with in case anyone else is interested in methods to help businesses improve and respond to change.
While I recognise the valid points made elsewhere in this discussion about this guy’s luck and/or cheating, I can’t help wonder about how we would react differently to an AI “oracle” that gave useful solutions to problems we can’t /couldn’t solve. Where is the boundary between experiential evidence and statistical “proof”?
For the benefit of some below, the design shown in the news article is only a concept image [1]. The final design will be revealed nearer the time the new note is issued.
This is a very difficult question to answer comprehensively because our "website" does a lot more than just present information to people! Most of the content you can see on www.nhs.uk is Python/Django/Wagtail plus a whole heap of infrastructure. But there are aspects of our service written in C# or JS for example.
I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.
With respect, I think you fail to appreciate the importance of effective communication of health and care information to members of the public.
The NHS is under incredible financial strain due to an ageing population and one of the UK government's key strategic goals is to reduce demand on GPs and hospitals through channel shift, i.e. providing much better information online so that citizens can prevent illness and also find better avenues for care (e.g. their pharmacist).
This is much more difficult than you might think. For example, a very large number of people seeking health and care advice in the UK are "old" and not used to using the internet. At NHS Digital we have had to carry out extensive research into how best to communicate advice in a way that is suitable for all audiences.
NHS Digital has a key role in the UK health and care system and our goal is to share (and perhaps mandate) our technical solutions to these communication problems. Through this we aim to save the NHS money and promote better citizen health and care.
I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.
Your comment is a good explanation of how things work.
My employer, NHS Digital, is working on this frontend library as a way to spread good practice throughout the federated health and care system you describe.
In short, we spend money doing the research on how best to provide information to users/patients and then we promote the uptake of the technology we develop to best satisfy them - with the overall goal of improving self-care and reducing the need for costly GP appointments and hospital visits.
I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.
I largely agree with what you have written above, however things work very differently now in NHS Digital.
Every piece of work we embark upon is based on strict requirements from a commissioning body (typically NHS England or Public Health England) and is managed tightly according to budget and demonstrated realised benefits.
We have a highly capable layer of delivery managers who help translate and interpret these "business goals" into things which our agile teams of developers can work towards.
It's not perfect, but we're improving all the time. If we fail then the money taps get turned off quickly, and we move onto something else.
Further to that, I've read on several occasions about lone survivors of disasters who report encountering a person who wasn't there who helped them to survive.
The most common I've encountered is the stereotypical tale of "mountain madness" [2] where an injured or lost climber receives help or guidance from an imaginary being (who presumably seemed quite real to them during their escape from peril).
Literature, fiction and cinema are all full of similar tales (not all in mountain scenarios) and so I expect that this "ability" is part of being human.
There would be an evolutionary advantage to be had if the brain was able to access some "hidden partition" containing recovery instructions during times of extreme stress.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)
[2] https://consumer.healthday.com/fitness-information-14/climbi...
Edit: better [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088769/