Software Predicts Tomorrow’s News by Analyzing Today’s and Yesterday’s

Too bad Microsoft didn't have this around to help them anticipate Apple's introduction of the iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, the iEverythingElse, Microsoft being Microsoft and always playing catch-up, it seems. They are discreet sheep, after all, watching to see where the drove is going then hopping out front, pretending to lead it.

Back then Apple's intros also qualified as Tomorrow's News (an erroneously broad topic statement, btw, and not just about disease-outbreak prediction, specifically, and the article's topic, specifically, but sufficiently broad to lure unwary readers into believing it means Tomorrow's News. All of it).

Betcha I can predict what the predictions will be;

"The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history."

Attributed to person unknown to poster.

That would spell The End for KrisDel™'s "CrystalBall® 1.0"...

"Betcha I can predict what the predictions will be;

'The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history.'

"That would spell The End for KrisDel™'s CrystalBall® 1.0..."

LynDoor™'s Forecast-O-Matic® Platinum Edition™ had already foreseen this of course, but has yet to anticipate KrisDel™'s forthcoming PastPerfect™ Alternative Timelines Synthesizer®, available now.

Don't like the past? Change it!

This "prototype software" is not really a new idea.

Within 6 months of moving into a home we purchased in 1984 it was burglarized. The feeling of personal violation can lead to consuming thoughts. I was consumed with security systems for some time and also thought about crime in general. I wondered if computers were used to process data of past crimes, whether they might help predict future ones. I don't know how long these types of programs have been around, but the idea is being tried as reported in this article and is certainly driven by the same hope of prediction based on analysis of past data.

What is interesting (and possibly sobering) is the potential for this technology to become a way of "controlling" the future. It seems to be an emerging idea that is catching on. Here's one Q&A from an interview with Chris Ahlberg:

Business Insider: Who are your customers?

Chris Ahlberg: We're selling it to governments who are using this to do sort of intelligence analysis. Then we sell it to these quant investors, largely because we think of these as sort of low-hanging fruit, a good place to get started. This is a tough problem to solve. Long-term, we want to get it in the hands of comparative intelligence people. We've kind of done the anti-Silicon Valley strategy where most people, if they build something like we do, they put up a new search box and they say, "Go for it!" (underlining mine)

In the same way that there are analysts for the stock market (and computers play a key role), whereby companies come to trust and act on those predictions, the same could happen with governments, and in turn, world events. Anyone privy to the disclosed information could, now predict how players who are provided "trends" from these analyses, might react to any act or event. Prediction and manipulation by the information disclosed, becomes a real possibility. No predictions like this are foolproof, but the response to the likelihood of any prediction (which is what planning is) becomes limited. Actions (or reactions) based on fear are the easiest to predict. It isn't a stretch to see how gaining the trust of the customers of such information would now make them susceptible to manipulation via predicted responses to that information. (At that point, the information might be whatever the person(s) providing it would want; not necessarily the computed analysis -- the "truth." Intelligence work is sometimes based on subterfuge like this.)

Manipulation of the public isn't anything new or far fetched. It's been happening in advertising and marketing for a long time. (Also, see Frank Luntz.) But this is yet another layer in relinquishing (or submitting) ourselves to the idea that all advancement and uses of IT is benign and always ends in the advancement of our species.

It is somewhat a Catch-22. We think that being able to predict events can lead to better management and control of the uncertainties of life -- minimizing suffering. But might we begin to become slaves to the predictions themselves by trusting and, therefore, giving data analysis the final say in our actions? And if so, what of free will? It is an interesting topic.

Prof. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is one player in this "game." (Scroll past "boxes" to article.) Predictions based on predicted responses. Can we also see the potential for the future to become like computer chess? One algorithm and computer system pitted against another? Computers, essentially, ruling us through analysis of past historical scenarios, like an analysis of chess openings or moves? The predictability of human response becoming a tool for dictation?

It is an enticing and inviting technology. It can be an intoxicating technology, too. Imagine the power one would feel to have the trust of governments around the world, for this kind of information. The possibilities for abuse would probably make the mortgage scandal pale in comparison. And talk about us all becoming nothing more than a number in society!? Unfortunately, for most business models we have been for SO long. (sigh)

Everybody already use trends, we are all able to predict our entire life; unless something else happens of course...

I just love that term 'foreseeable future,' don't you?

"I don't see anyone inventing the Internet in the foreseeable future." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Something may happen in the foreseeable future. Then again, something else may happen instead; it could go either way." ~Yahlasit, from The Quotable Yahlasit, 2nd Ed.

"See what I mean?" ~Yahlasit, from The Quotable Yahlasit, 1st Ed., Ch 5: Future Quotes I Don't Remember Saying