Insights from Harley: Combining LLMs with Decision Technology

In our latest podcast (Apple, Spotify, YouTube), we talk to Harley Davis, the Founder and CEO of Athena Decision Systems.

Harley was on the leadership team of ILOG when they bought LogicTools in 2007. Then, when IBM purchased us in 2009, I worked for Harley. I respected him as a manager. Harley stayed at IBM until 2023. In 2024, he started Athena Decision Systems to combine LLMs with decision-making technology.

There is a lot of hype that LLMs will solve all problems. Harley is impressed with LLMs but realizes they need to be complemented with other technologies to solve business problems.

The whole conversation was interesting. Here are some of the highlights of the conversation for me.

He explains the importance of engineering business solutions.

To build a business solution, you need to engineer the solution. You need to consider run-time requirements and link many systems together.

He explains why you need more than LLMs

Harley provides a nice explanation of the need to define a space of possible solutions, and then a need for a method to search that space for the best possible answer. Many technologies, like business rules or optimization, could be used to search that space.

He explains business rules.

This was a selfish question on my part. ~40 years ago, business rules were considered the solution to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Turns out, they weren’t. I find it interesting how little attention they get as a decision-making tool. Even though they were an AI dead-end, they are still valuable.

I knew Harley was an expert on this technology. I learned a few new things, and his discussion of business rules might motivate a few people to take a look.

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