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Would advanced software predict the future?

Goldar

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Heck, google has enough information about me to predict many of my decisions as it is. Perhaps in the near future, sophisticated software using all of the information available about us online would be able to predict even our smallest decisions.
Bye, Bye the illusion of "Free Will".
 

Cæilon

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Where's my god damn Minority Report!?
 

ProxyAmenRa

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Heck, google has enough information about me to predict many of my decisions as it is. Perhaps in the near future, sophisticated software using all of the information available about us online would be able to predict even our smallest decisions.
Bye, Bye the illusion of "Free Will".

You can predict mechanical/electrical/chemical systems. One day we might even have the power to predict chaotic systems. I don't think we will be able to predict human behaviour with a high degree of accuracy.
 

nanook

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i do believe that it's possible to predict democratic events or similar opinion/trend movements. how fast will a piece of misinformation take over, how long will it live? when will this small minority become a majority? because human group think does follow stereotypical patterns.
 

Pyropyro

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We need lots of computer processing power, even more than we have now to predict human behavior. But, as Proxy said, it would still have a significant degree of error.
 

Ex-User (9086)

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There are limits to computation in a physically finite spacetime.
It could be accurate in specific cases, but not perfect or general purpose.
And it wouldn't be just software, it would have to be large sets of data collecting units creating a probabilistic landscape that self-corrects for every new data point emerging in the equation from all the blind spots and noise.
 

The Gopher

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Sure, my cat can predict the future. It's almost always wrong though. Maybe because I don't have a cat. As far as accurately predicting the future, eventually.
 

Architect

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Yes we already have this capability to some degree, certainly it's heavily used in the Finance sector, in both insurance and market predictions. Insurance is the easy problem, markets are difficult because it's a free agent system where opponents are also using prediction, so it tends to cancel out.
 

Cognisant

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With the advent of AI that can think conceptually Google won't even need to predict your decisions, they'll just make them for you :rolleyes:

Siri is where this sort of thing starts but not where it ends, a sufficiently complex/reliable program could order your groceries for you and decide what to buy based upon the factors you tell it to consider and the feedback you give it on past purchasing decisions. Furthermore what if you need to buy a birthday present for a niece or nephew you don't know very well and they're in that awkward to buy for late child yet preteen age, well you just tell your AI to do it. You tell it how much you're willing to spend, how soon you need it, the AI consults with the recipient's AI or their parent's AI so your gift is the sort of thing that particular individual may want, and if your AI finds something that doesn't match your specifications but would otherwise be ideal (for example it costs a little more than you're initially wiling to spend) your AI will consult you about it.

But there's more to it that you wouldn't know about unless you read your EULA very carefully...

Your AI can also consult with with the grocery store AI, now the store may have some stock that's going to expire in a month or so and your AI knows you go through a given amount of this stuff in a month so the store discounts the price and you end up eating a different brand of cereal this month, unless you've specifically told your AI to always get your favourite brand. That's not so insidious, in fact it's downright sensible, however since there's no longer much point advertising to you anymore instead the companies which host these AIs will make a business of selling "advertising" to the AIs themselves, just like how Google adjusts the priority of listings in its search engine for a given fee.

Someday EVERYONE will have a free, personal, incredibly useful AI assistant.
Google has a truly brilliant business model so why fix what isn't broken?
 

StevenM

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It has been said that eventually soon, or maybe it's even happening now, we will start being arrested for crimes we haven't yet committed. Based on your actions online and offline, it can be predicted if you will break the law. Next thing you know, you have a swat team at the door.

:storks:
 

Analyzer

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You can predict the future without software. Software just increases the processing power.

Maybe natural phenomena based off of some probabilistic model, but I am not so sure human action can be predicted in the same light as it's based off of each actors value based judgements(free will) not causality.
 

J-man

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Maybe natural phenomena based off of some probabilistic model, but I am not so sure human action can be predicted in the same light as it's based off of each actors value based judgements(free will) not causality.
How do you know that value based judgements are not causal?

I think it is possible for AI to predict everything a person will do. A powerful enough AI could predict the exact state of the Earth as it would be 1,000+ years later, including the choices people make.
 

Goldar

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Personal data gathering would not be restricted by what we do online, that's what we project to the outside world and predictions based on those are already possible today. The trick would be gather the internal data (physical, chemical and emotional) that are behind the decisions we make and those are constantly changing.
Apparently we are already heading that way....
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PIBv6umT-HM
 

Analyzer

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How do you know that value based judgements are not causal?

I think it is possible for AI to predict everything a person will do. A powerful enough AI could predict the exact state of the Earth as it would be 1,000+ years later, including the choices people make.

They could be but the science isn't their yet and possibly might never be. Even the natural sciences have limited causality, we just accept them because they are good enough to predict outcomes. They can be overturn tomorrow if a better theory comes along.

I think with human action there needs to be certain amount of public or social sentiment for the possibility of science achieving predictability and causality of choice. It's easier for individuals to acknowledged some physical theory as universal compared to social ones like in the field of economics.
 

ASquare183

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In theory, if you knew the exact composition of the universe (down to the most basic sub-atomic level, which we haven't discovered), and you somehow had the hardware and software capabilities, you could render the entire past and future of the universe. But that's impossible for a lot of reasons.
 
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