![]() This article analyses the rise of software systems in education governance, focusing on digital methods in the collection, calculation and circulation of educational data. The perspective developed in the paper provides practitioners with a way of understanding their clients’ approach to decision-making and holds out the possibility of making coherent the claim that they are offering advice on how to apply a scientific approach to decision-making it presents academics with some philosophical challenges and some new avenues for research. It is argued that these three strategies can be understood as attempts to emulate the scientific process of achieving intersubjective consensus, a process inherent in CR. ![]() By reflecting on the way that managers, engineers, administrators and other professionals take decisions in practice, three strategies are identified for handling the inevitable subjectivity in practical decision-making. However, as developed by Karl Popper, and subsequently extended by David Miller, CR can only support practice (deciding what to do, how to act) in a very limited way concentrating on the critical application of deductive logic, the crucial role of subjective judgements in making technical and moral choices are ignored or are at least left underdeveloped. The philosophical position referred to as critical rationalism (CR) is potentially important to OR because it holds out the possibility of supporting OR’s claim to offer managers a scientifically ‘rational’ approach. The OR community needs to get involved more deeply in AI it has the relevant expertise to do so. When AI does finally displace OR practitioners, it may come in the form of 'AI strong enough for OR', strong enough to satisfy potential OR clients in terms of efficacy and cost. The paper concludes that the centre of gravity of OR practice will move from analysis to those aspects difficult to computerize, the 'residuals'. Some OR jobs will be destroyed and others will be created giving rise to new, more varied career paths. Mathematicians and philosophers have widened the scope of logic to cover many aspects of decision-making sociologists have conducted research into the social context and consequences of new technologies and economists have analysed their rates of penetration. ![]() To think about the issues, we can turn to our experience of practicing OR and to the insights of mathematics, philosophy, sociology, and economics. ![]() We also pride ourselves on our attention to context, our project management skills, and our pragmatic approach. How will AI affect OR practice? In OR we aspire to be logical, and therefore our behaviours should be relatively easy to replicate in logic, the basis of computer systems. ![]()
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March 2023
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