Distributed Decision Making

Imagine you are in a car travelling down the motorway. You are trying to keep to the speed limit (110km/h here in Australia). How good are you at doing that? Do you, like me (and most of the population) just follow the car in front with an occasional glance at the speedometer? A few hasty speed corrections when that occasional glance tells you that the car in front was doing 130 not 100? Now imagine that there is a police car right behind you. Does your strategy change? Mine certainly does. Your eyes barely leave the speedometer. You maintain absolute, tight control over the car's speed.

There are downsides to this approach though. While your eyes are firmly fixed on the speedo (that's Australian for speedometer BTW) they aren't firmly fixed on the road. While you are deeply focused on the operational details of driving the car (controlling its speed) you have lost sight of something very important - the road ahead. You may be sitting right on the speed limit but you have just driven past your exit. Or worse, you may have missed a sign telling you that the speed limit had changed and now the flashing lights are in your rear view mirror and you are being pulled over for speeding. Precisely the thing you were trying to avoid.