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How is Decision Intel different from ChatGPT or a general AI assistant?

ChatGPT gives one opinion from one model: ungoverned, untraceable, unaudited. Decision Intel is the reasoning audit platform. Most tools audit your data; we audit your reasoning — and catch the fatal blind spots in strategic memos before the committee does. It measures the noise in your reasoning the same way Kahneman did in the insurance underwriter study, simulates an AI boardroom of CEO, CFO, and board personas, runs what-if interventions against a 143-case public reference library, and compounds every confirmed outcome back into a calibrated Decision Quality Index your audit committee can defend. Not a chatbot; a reasoning audit, checkable from memo to outcome.

Which cognitive biases caused Vale S.A.'s collapse?

5 bias patterns are documented in this case, led by Confirmation Bias. The full set: Hindsight Bias, Groupthink, Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Misering, Optimism Bias. Each is mapped to Decision Intel's 22-bias R²F taxonomy with stable IDs and academic citations.

What is Decision Intel's reasoning audit?

Decision Intel runs a 12-node Recognition-Rigor Framework (R²F) pipeline on strategic memos, detecting cognitive biases from a 22-bias canonical taxonomy and producing a Decision Quality Index (DQI) score. The audit produces a hashed, tamper-evident Decision Provenance Record (DPR) suitable for audit-committee review.

All case studies

Catastrophic failureEnergy2019

Vale S.A.

Vale Brumadinho Dam Collapse

Estimated impact: $7B in settlements and remediation; 270 deaths

F14

Decision Quality Index (simulated)

Critical · 5 biases detected, 2 toxic combinations

A tailings dam at Vale's Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brumadinho, Brazil, collapsed without warning, releasing 12 million cubic meters of toxic mud. 270 people were killed, including many mine employees eating lunch in the path of the flow. The dam had been certified as stable just months before.

Decision context

Whether Vale's upstream dam construction method and internal stability monitoring were adequate, given that a similar Vale-linked dam (Samarco) had collapsed just three years earlier.

Decision anatomy

Monetary stakes

Very high

Dissent suppressed

Time pressure

None

Unanimous consensus

Decision participants

Dissent encouraged

External advisors

Iterative process

Red = risk factor present · Green = protective factor present

Deep hindsight-stripped analysis coming soon. This case is part of our ongoing backfill to reconstruct what the platform would have flagged at decision time. The summary and bias profile below are drawn from primary sources.

Biases present in the decision

Hindsight Bias

medium

Groupthink

high

★Confirmation Bias

critical

Cognitive Misering

medium

Optimism Bias

medium

★ Primary driver · Severity estimated from bias type and decision outcome

3D Decision Knowledge Graph

Vale S.A. · 5 biases, 2 toxic combinations

Drag to rotate · Scroll to zoom · Click to explore

Decision

Critical

High

Medium

Toxic

Bias Intensity Profile

Severity × confidence across 5 detected biases

Toxic combinations

!Echo Chamber

Group members reinforce each other's views, systematically filtering out dissenting signals.

!Optimism Trap

Overconfidence and availability bias create a systematically positive outlook that ignores base rates.

Reference class base rates

Across all 143 curated case studies in our library:

89%

base failure rate

-0%

partial / mixed

11%

base success rate

■ Failure■ Partial■ Success

Lessons learned

Confirmation bias: stability certificates were obtained from auditors who used the data provided by Vale rather than independent monitoring
The Samarco disaster (2015) should have been a direct warning, but Vale treated it as an isolated event rather than a systemic risk indicator
Placing employee facilities directly downstream of a tailings dam reflects a fundamental failure to internalize catastrophic risk

Source: Brazilian Federal Police investigation report (2020); Brazilian Senate CPI inquiry (2019) (Post Mortem)

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Workflows that fire on decisions like Vale S.A.’s

The same Recognition-Rigor Framework that documents this case audits memos in the same shape — before the outcome forces the lesson.

For CSOs and Heads of Strategic Planning

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Lessons learned

Confirmation bias: stability certificates were obtained from auditors who used the data provided by Vale rather than independent monitoring

The Samarco disaster (2015) should have been a direct warning, but Vale treated it as an isolated event rather than a systemic risk indicator

Placing employee facilities directly downstream of a tailings dam reflects a fundamental failure to internalize catastrophic risk