Decision Making or Decision Making: What a Simple Style Choice Reveals About the Future of Human Cognition

Is it one word or two? The question of "decision making or decision making" seems, at first glance, to be a trivial matter for grammarians and style guides. Yet, beneath this simple query lies a profound distinction that cuts to the heart of the greatest technological and philosophical shift of our era: the rise of artificial intelligence. How we write this term reflects how we think about the very act of choosing, and it serves as a powerful lens through which to apply the framework of The Great Unbundling.

This seemingly minor point of semantics is, in fact, a microcosm of a monumental change. As AI systems increasingly take on the role of 'deciders,' we must ask ourselves: are they truly making decisions in the human sense, or are they doing something else entirely?

This article will provide a clear grammatical answer before exploring the deeper implications of this distinction.

• For the AI-Curious Professional, this exploration will clarify the crucial difference between a human's integrated judgment and an AI's calculated output, offering a new way to frame your role in a world of automated systems.
• For the Philosophical Inquirer, we will deconstruct how language shapes our understanding of agency, consciousness, and accountability in the age of artificial intelligence.
• For the Aspiring AI Ethicist, this analysis will reveal how even grammatical choices can embed or challenge assumptions about responsibility in automated systems, a core challenge for the field.

As J.Y. Sterling argues in his book, "The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being," we are witnessing the systematic separation of human capabilities. The debate over "decision making" is a perfect example of this process in action, forcing us to confront the unbundling of intellect from agency.

The Grammatical Answer: A Quick Resolution

Before delving into the philosophical implications, let's resolve the practical question. The choice between "decision making," "decision-making," and "decisionmaking" depends entirely on its grammatical function in a sentence.

• Decision making (two words, noun phrase): This is the most common and widely accepted form. It refers to the process or act of coming to a conclusion.

  • Example: "Her decision making was critical to the project's success."
  • Usage: According to most major style guides, including the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style, the two-word version is the standard for the noun form.

• Decision-making (hyphenated, adjective): This form is used to modify another noun, describing something related to the act of making decisions.

  • Example: "We need to improve the decision-making process."
  • Usage: The hyphen links the two words together to show they are acting as a single descriptive unit for the word that follows (in this case, "process").

• Decisionmaking (one word, compound noun): This version is the least common, though it has been gaining traction, particularly in corporate and technical writing where brevity is valued. It functions as a synonym for the two-word noun phrase.

  • Example: "Effective decisionmaking is a key leadership trait."
  • Usage: While grammatically acceptable in some contexts, it can feel like jargon and is often less preferred in formal prose.

In short, if you are describing the process, use decision making. If you are describing a thing, use the hyphenated decision-making.

Beyond Grammar: Unbundling 'Decision' from 'Making'

The grammatical separation of the words is where the connection to The Great Unbundling truly begins. For millennia, the human experience has been a bundled one. The person who analyzed a problem also felt the emotional weight of the potential outcomes and took physical action based on the conclusion. The 'decision' and the 'making' were intrinsically linked within a single, conscious individual.

AI represents the definitive unbundling of these two concepts.

'Decision': The Unbundled Analytical Engine

The first word, "decision," represents the analytical, computational, and logical component of the process. It is the act of selecting the optimal path based on available data. This is precisely the capability that AI has mastered and is improving at an exponential rate.

• AI in Law: An AI can pass the Uniform Bar Examination, analyzing legal precedents to decide the correct answer to complex legal questions. It does this without any concept of justice, fairness, or the human lives behind the cases. The decision is unbundled from legal wisdom.
• AI in Finance: Algorithmic trading systems make millions of buy/sell decisions per second, driven purely by market data and predictive models. According to a 2020 report from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, automated trading now accounts for the majority of volume in U.S. equity markets. The decision is unbundled from financial responsibility or intuition.
• AI in Medicine: AI models can diagnose diseases from medical scans with superhuman accuracy. They decide whether a tumor is malignant or benign based on pixels, unburdened by the empathy or ethical weight a human doctor feels when delivering that diagnosis.

In each case, the AI is a pure, unbundled decision engine. It calculates but does not comprehend.

'Making': The Bundled Human Experience

The second word, "making," implies something more. It suggests agency, embodiment, accountability, and purpose. It requires a maker—a conscious entity who not only chooses but also owns the consequences of that choice. This is the bundled capability that remains uniquely human.

Making involves:

• Accountability: The willingness to stand by a choice and face its repercussions.
• Intuition: Drawing on a lifetime of disparate, bundled experiences that cannot be quantified into a dataset.
• Empathy: Considering the emotional and human impact of a decision on others.
• Purpose: Aligning a choice with a larger set of values or goals.

When a human leader makes a tough decision, they are integrating logical analysis with these bundled traits. AI, in its current form, cannot replicate this. It performs the first half of the phrase, "decision," but is incapable of the second, "making."

AI as the Ultimate Separator: Decision Making vs. Decision-Calculation

The rise of AI compels us to create a new term for what these systems do. They are not performing decision making; they are performing decision-calculation. This distinction is critical. The push to use the single, fused word "decisionmaking" is a subtle reflection of the capitalist engine that, as Sterling argues in The Great Unbundling, seeks to streamline and optimize every process. Fusing the words into a single business-friendly term, "decisionmaking," mirrors the technological act of fusing the process into an efficient, opaque black box.

This linguistic efficiency hides a dangerous truth: by treating an AI's calculation as a complete "decision," we risk abdicating the most important part of the process—the moral and ethical "making." We see this in debates over autonomous weapons, biased hiring algorithms, and automated parole systems. The algorithm makes a "decision," but a human programmer, a corporate policy, or a societal bias is the hidden "maker."

The Great Re-bundling: Why Choosing 'Decision Making' Matters

If the Great Unbundling is the inevitable technological tide, the human response must be what Sterling calls "The Great Re-bundling." This is the conscious and deliberate effort to re-integrate our capabilities in new ways, to resist complete automation, and to create new human purpose.

Choosing to use the two-word phrase "decision making" is a small but meaningful act in this re-bundling movement. It is a linguistic stand for clarity and accountability.

Re-linking Accountability to Action

Insisting on the two-word phrase constantly reminds us that these are two distinct components. It forces the question: An AI provided the decision, but who is doing the making? This prevents us from becoming complacent and allowing accountability to dissolve into the algorithmic ether. It pushes us to design systems where a human is always the ultimate "maker," even when aided by a powerful "decider."

Actionable Insights for a Hybrid World

• For Professionals: When using an AI tool, reframe its output. Do not accept it as a "decision," but rather as a "recommendation" or "calculation." The final act of making the decision—integrating it with your experience, ethics, and client knowledge—is your unique and valuable contribution.
• For Leaders: Build a culture that rewards holistic decision making, not just rapid, data-driven outputs. Champion the human-in-the-loop models that leverage the unbundled power of AI calculation while preserving the bundled wisdom of human agency.
• For Everyone: Pay attention to the language you use. Words shape reality. By maintaining the space between "decision" and "making," you advocate for a future where technology serves human judgment rather than replaces it.

Conclusion: From a Style Guide to a Civilizational Choice

We began with a simple question of orthography: is it "decision making" or "decisionmaking"? We discovered that the answer is more than a style preference. It's a statement about the value we place on human agency in a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence.

The unbundling of human capabilities is well underway. AI can now decide better and faster than any human can. But the capacity for making—for imbuing a choice with purpose, accountability, and wisdom—remains our most essential and defining trait.

The choice between the one-word and two-word versions is a reflection of a much larger choice before us: Will we allow our most critical cognitive and moral functions to be fused and unbundled into opaque, unaccountable systems? Or will we champion a Great Re-bundling, consciously fighting to keep the human agent at the center of the choices that shape our world?

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To explore the full implications of The Great Unbundling and how we can navigate the future of human purpose, order your copy of The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being today.

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