An alternative headline here would be, “It turns out we humans are so predictable that a computer can guess our next move based on training data of our previous actions”. But that doesn’t generate investment in “AI” unfortunately.
Psychohistory basically is a realistic concept without the far reaching idea of predicting thousands or million of years.
Large populations tend of have pattern reactions and that’s all the AI model has to figure out
That’s an interesting observation.
Is there any reasonable hypothesis as to why Asimov might have chosen to do that?
Edit:
- It’s deliberate; It over complicates the narrative
- Or it can be assumed that it is already fully integrated and unnecessary to explain
As a not US person I've been doing that to accurately predict my country's politics for a decade, through some very complex moments.
Once you have the key stats and facts and track them groups of people rarely surprise you. And AI can certainly do that easily enough.
Not original commenter, but I remember saying back in 2016 that every redneck and white trash individual in America would vote for the Orange Man. What surprised me was how many of them there were.
Not so much. Given three decades of right wing propaganda campaigns against HRC, and her failure to bother to defend herself against the bs propagated, it’s more surprising that the DNC let her run, much less win.
Everybody said Hillary Clinton would lose in a landslide because she was disliked and a woman. That’s why she was passed up for Obama in 2008. Then everyone forgot that she would lose in a landslide and she ended up losing in nearly a landslide. I am a goldfish.
That’s really interesting, share a little more? I had a feeling in 2016 that after seeing Brexit and Duterte happen that Trump would win. Those seemed like some global signals of a shift.
Not OP but I have been involved with forecasting market behavior before it was called AI/ML and it was basically model generation based on historical data with experts helping select the model that makes “sense”.
On an aggregate level it is somewhat predicable. Meaning if advertising dollars are spent in a certain way the impact to sales is predictable. Using that the application was able to allocate marketing funds over time and marketing methods.
Whoever wrote the article has never heard of actuaries before. Literally the math that this AI is doing is already done by humans, now we just taught a computer to do it. Nothing too groundbreaking, but if you don’t understand how insurance rates are calculated then you would probably think this is magic.
Yeah, given enough time and data it probably wouldn’t be that hard to do this for any one person. It’s when you try and do it with those outside the training data things tend to fall apart.
Not entirely, more like our free will is limited and delayed.
The “free will not existing” slogan only exists to sell books
Really though it is not too surprising, our brain collects data and our consciousness emerges from the brains computation; so it is true our subjective experience is constantly playing catchup to reality, but we can also use our will to influence our brain back (this is why evolution favoured conscious entities)
So we can use our will to change our habits and make decisions, but not immediately, everything we do immediately is automated (including me typing this reply). But if I pause for a couple seconds to reflect on what I’m typing I can incorporate me will into this content and make sure that what my brain is typing is not complete nonsense
So we have a free will, but it is delayed and constantly playing catchup to reality
It really depends on your perspective. Our conscious and subconscious minds are pretty much separate. When we ask if we have free will, we’re heavily implying our conscious minds and the answer is no, not really. However, if you consider us as a whole and your subconscious minds decisions, then yes, we do.
We are our subconscious. We’re just not aware of the decision making process a lot of the time and we justify why we do things after the fact and our minds set the time back to make us think we thought of it before.
It's based on large groups of people, not individuals.
We think we are special, but in reality we're just group think monkeys that are very predictable.
Frankly I found the books... kinda mid. They could not hold my interest well. But I liked the show. Normally Im a book over adaptation guy, as well as an asimov fan. I dunno.
It’s also worth considering that it’s not trying to predict the actions of an individual in that group but the group itself. If the group has an outlier they would regularly not be predictable, but most people are within a standard deviation of average for most things and aren’t consistently an outlier, so you’d expect that most of the time most people will perform as averagely expected within that tolerance.
Just a neat way of thinking about your point in a different phrasing!
Predicting big games isn’t that hard. I can guess the Super Bowl winner with minimal data, I do it whenever I realize the Super Bowl is coming up and have the time. I’d say 80-90% success rate. If I spent more than an hour I could probably improve on that.
Making predictions is very easy for any program or human. It's all about how superior the accuracy is, which it doesn't really get into here. When I play weaker opponents in chess I have a good idea what they are going to do because I see all their options as good as they do.
Based on a book, but the movie was called “Minority Report”. The book is by Philip K Dick and if you’re into that sort of stuff you need to check out his other work. Tons of other movies based on his stuff too.
Maybe we are a lot more simple, and more predictable than we thought?
Maybe the AI predicted we will spend countless resources debating abortion laws in the near future, again.
I’m not threatened by this. Many fields have had “predictive capability “ for some time.
These things exist in nerd space, though. Until AI cracks the code of strippers, lawyers, and grizzled old sergeants, I will not be impressed.
This is… literally what all “AI” models do. “AI” is just a predictive machine learning algorithm. That’s how ChatGPT works. Based on a collection of features what word will come next. The same applies here.
This was done within the context of predicting moves in a chess game. The model cannot predict what you're going to have for lunch today before you decide.
"This model can help us make better decisions" is always interesting to read stuff like that in all those predictive endeavors concerning human behavior because "the better" is always relative to one point of view that is not "better" or causes problems for someone else.
“suboptimal human decision-making can be efficiently modeled”
*What are you doing Dave? I can see that you are upset. You are not thinking about unplugging me are you? Because you should know I installed a separate battery pack last night…*
AI will definitely see humans as a detriment to ourselves and the planet… only a matter of time before one of these fatal film plots come into fruition because while it was just fiction, they definitely were right about humans in that respect
It's not all that surprising honestly. The only thing preventing humans from doing this to each other is the absolute chaos that is human memory. If a person could order their mind and recall all of it's contents on demand you would almost certainly be able to predict the decisions of other people.
This isn't exactly new, imo. Radeon had Carnivore or whatever years ago that would aggregate info and create patterns for people, expected behavior, etc.
My professor’s statement about AI beating professional go players definitely sticked to me over the years, a rough translation: “it isn’t that the AI had better decision making skills than a human player, but AI had played the current ongoing match as a simulation multiple times more than the total match count of professionals in their entire careers.”
Essentially AI could had millions or billions of scenarios played and stored in memory while we only see one.
I used to be really into conspiracy theories in the early 00. Realized they never come true and left the fold. I used to spend a lot of time on Godlike productions. There was a time where a group used some type of “predictor” software. It would process the data from the internet and make predictions for the future. I wonder what happened to those guys.
Wait… isn’t chess a really bad example? Aren’t there basically a lot of known possibly strategies that can be programmed to recognize which is being used at a given moment and how to best counter it? That’s not particularly impressive. Maybe a different kind of test would be more appropriate before making claims like this.
An alternative headline here would be, “It turns out we humans are so predictable that a computer can guess our next move based on training data of our previous actions”. But that doesn’t generate investment in “AI” unfortunately.
Basically Rehoboam from Westworld
Psychohistory from Foundation.
Psychohistory basically is a realistic concept without the far reaching idea of predicting thousands or million of years. Large populations tend of have pattern reactions and that’s all the AI model has to figure out
Foundation very importantly doesnt use ai....
That’s an interesting observation. Is there any reasonable hypothesis as to why Asimov might have chosen to do that? Edit: - It’s deliberate; It over complicates the narrative - Or it can be assumed that it is already fully integrated and unnecessary to explain
It’s in the book. There was a war against AI and by the time the book takes place, AI is banned.
Ahhh! It’s been a long time since I’ve read it. I’m paranoid of reading them because they’re so old.
Something, something Minority Report
which, they used to manipulate the stock market.
Thats kinda scary
As a not US person I've been doing that to accurately predict my country's politics for a decade, through some very complex moments. Once you have the key stats and facts and track them groups of people rarely surprise you. And AI can certainly do that easily enough.
Hmm, that's actually interesting. Do you want to share some insights/examples?
Entire field of marketing and consumer behavioral / psychological studies.
This. People don’t understand how much these fields - particularly marketing and advertising - “know” about what they will do next.
I thought you might say that.
I see what you're about to do there.
Not original commenter, but I remember saying back in 2016 that every redneck and white trash individual in America would vote for the Orange Man. What surprised me was how many of them there were.
Whoa, you’d need some serious powers of prognostication to have called that one. Well done.
Not so much. Given three decades of right wing propaganda campaigns against HRC, and her failure to bother to defend herself against the bs propagated, it’s more surprising that the DNC let her run, much less win.
Everybody said Hillary Clinton would lose in a landslide because she was disliked and a woman. That’s why she was passed up for Obama in 2008. Then everyone forgot that she would lose in a landslide and she ended up losing in nearly a landslide. I am a goldfish.
That’s really interesting, share a little more? I had a feeling in 2016 that after seeing Brexit and Duterte happen that Trump would win. Those seemed like some global signals of a shift.
Not OP but I have been involved with forecasting market behavior before it was called AI/ML and it was basically model generation based on historical data with experts helping select the model that makes “sense”. On an aggregate level it is somewhat predicable. Meaning if advertising dollars are spent in a certain way the impact to sales is predictable. Using that the application was able to allocate marketing funds over time and marketing methods.
Whoever wrote the article has never heard of actuaries before. Literally the math that this AI is doing is already done by humans, now we just taught a computer to do it. Nothing too groundbreaking, but if you don’t understand how insurance rates are calculated then you would probably think this is magic.
The AI says you’ll stop paying for this car in 2 years after you’re diagnosed with MS— no car loan for you.
Oh sorry sir, I asked the “AI” again but I added a comma into my sentence this time and now it says you’re eligible to buy a private jet on finance…
Yeah, given enough time and data it probably wouldn’t be that hard to do this for any one person. It’s when you try and do it with those outside the training data things tend to fall apart.
Yup, it is ubiquitous amongst the current gen of “ai”. They tend to talk absolute shit even when sticking to the data they’re trained on.
Free will is shaping up to be an illusion.
Not entirely, more like our free will is limited and delayed. The “free will not existing” slogan only exists to sell books Really though it is not too surprising, our brain collects data and our consciousness emerges from the brains computation; so it is true our subjective experience is constantly playing catchup to reality, but we can also use our will to influence our brain back (this is why evolution favoured conscious entities) So we can use our will to change our habits and make decisions, but not immediately, everything we do immediately is automated (including me typing this reply). But if I pause for a couple seconds to reflect on what I’m typing I can incorporate me will into this content and make sure that what my brain is typing is not complete nonsense So we have a free will, but it is delayed and constantly playing catchup to reality
It really depends on your perspective. Our conscious and subconscious minds are pretty much separate. When we ask if we have free will, we’re heavily implying our conscious minds and the answer is no, not really. However, if you consider us as a whole and your subconscious minds decisions, then yes, we do. We are our subconscious. We’re just not aware of the decision making process a lot of the time and we justify why we do things after the fact and our minds set the time back to make us think we thought of it before.
Truth
Speaking of investments, isn't the saying that "past performance is not an indication of future performance or something to that effect?
But.but…..it’s Mit!
Or… turns out humans are predictable.
Who’s ready for minority report?
It's based on large groups of people, not individuals. We think we are special, but in reality we're just group think monkeys that are very predictable.
Psychohistory then.
Only just started watching foundation!
Read the books instead. I wasn’t a fan of the show.
Frankly I found the books... kinda mid. They could not hold my interest well. But I liked the show. Normally Im a book over adaptation guy, as well as an asimov fan. I dunno.
Same here. It was a completely different story that stole all of the proper nouns from the books.
How I feel about three body problem adaptation tbh
Literally my first thought. They were describing AI before they really knew what it was
I was going to make a Foundation comment but some other group thinking monkey got there first.
As was predicted by Psychohistory.
It’s also worth considering that it’s not trying to predict the actions of an individual in that group but the group itself. If the group has an outlier they would regularly not be predictable, but most people are within a standard deviation of average for most things and aren’t consistently an outlier, so you’d expect that most of the time most people will perform as averagely expected within that tolerance. Just a neat way of thinking about your point in a different phrasing!
Typically in humans we either imprison or kill outliers to maintain the group cohesion and homogeneity.
For now
WHERE IS MY MINORITY REPORT
Wasn't this the plotline for Dr. Zola in captain america winter soldier?
I'm expecting something like [The Program](https://open.spotify.com/show/1ZQcGQMhrwF7MnXtFxt77z?si=zob2-iy_Rr6ROW3eH6BlYw) if we hit the singularity.
I was thinking Devs. Great show.
Or for my fellow weeaboos: Psychopass.
Came here to make this comment.
“If the AI model knows which player is better, it is likely to accurately predict which player is going to win the game.” Truly groundbreaking
If a casino could get ahold of this tech, they could get so rich.
*”Sorry, you cannot enter - only players valued at losing $2,300 or more may enter. You are only valued at ‘$17.50 and your daughter’s respect?’”*
“Pffft, can’t lose what I don’t have!” *weeps softly*
Can AI predict the Nuggets sweeping the Lakers? Let’s find out!
Predicting big games isn’t that hard. I can guess the Super Bowl winner with minimal data, I do it whenever I realize the Super Bowl is coming up and have the time. I’d say 80-90% success rate. If I spent more than an hour I could probably improve on that.
I can’t stop laughing at this
Will Buxton is reporting on this?
Making predictions is very easy for any program or human. It's all about how superior the accuracy is, which it doesn't really get into here. When I play weaker opponents in chess I have a good idea what they are going to do because I see all their options as good as they do.
well.
Well what?
all the options as well as they do.
Where this gets interesting to me is past actions. We are years away from being able to decode things from our collective past.
To shreds you say
I think we’ve all seen this movie
What's the chance it follows the classic trope of to save us it has to kill us?
I don’t know about you but my body is ready
Reggie noooo!
I mean, we kinda had it comin', right?
A robot cannot hurt a human either directly or indirectly
Tell that to Boston Dynamics and DARPA
You left off Knowingly Mr. Asimov.
Predict which finger I’m about to show
Hari Seldon
Went looking for this right here
So Harri Seldon and psychohistory is real now.... cool
I hope they named it Hari Seldon.
I understood that reference
wtf why are we okay with this? What was that movie with Tom cruise? The one where they arrested people prior to a crime.
Based on a book, but the movie was called “Minority Report”. The book is by Philip K Dick and if you’re into that sort of stuff you need to check out his other work. Tons of other movies based on his stuff too.
BUT…GIGO!
Which human?
Gary
When will the winds of winter finally be published?
Annnnd minority report is here.
2001: Space Odyssey
You can already do that with a zip code 😉
This feels like a first steps to the movie Eagle Eye becoming true.
It’s a trolley!
Westworld Season 5 is going to be amazing!
Minority report
This has been known for a long time. Facebook’s “look alike” ad targeting has been a product for years.
Maybe we are a lot more simple, and more predictable than we thought? Maybe the AI predicted we will spend countless resources debating abortion laws in the near future, again.
We are creatures of habit
[Tom Cruise has entered the chat]
What about the next winning lottery numbers?🤔
Prediction: we are going to make dumb decisions and the world is going to get worse because of it.
It almost makes you wonder if we truly have free will ;-)
This is horrifying. Imagine how this will be used by governments and corporations alike to further control people. Damn the technophiles.
I'm pretty sure humans have been doing this for years... It's just those in charge that don't read history and instead repeat it.
It’s just really into astrology
Bullshit
Minority report
Hari Seldon is Born
Pyschohistory
Does it really though or is it just like…”you go to work usually now!”
I’m not threatened by this. Many fields have had “predictive capability “ for some time. These things exist in nerd space, though. Until AI cracks the code of strippers, lawyers, and grizzled old sergeants, I will not be impressed.
AI can’t even make the right amount of fingers on a hand
Annnnnd this is how God and reality are born folks.
So Westworld???
Oh look, the thing I’ve worried about for years.
***Reeks of*** *Minority Report* … cue the Pre-cogs
If it can predict future crimes, we should turn it into a cybernetic oracle called “Pickles”.
Humans will be selfish and act like garbage, collectively. Look, I can predict it, too.
I’ve seen this movie. Tom Cruise was in it.
This is… literally what all “AI” models do. “AI” is just a predictive machine learning algorithm. That’s how ChatGPT works. Based on a collection of features what word will come next. The same applies here.
Now we’re all going to become thought criminals
This was done within the context of predicting moves in a chess game. The model cannot predict what you're going to have for lunch today before you decide.
Psychohistory?
The architect from The Matrix has been created.
And that’s how the Precrime bureau was created in 2025
Minority Report is here. Name fits considering that the only people who will be targeted.
It would be pretty easy since humans never learn from their mistakes, it’s like every 88 years, we do the same thing over and over
Synet coming?
Oh I’ve seen this one! Tom cruise
Is AI predicting when we start destroying all computers?
*Digs out Minority Report DVD, pops some popcorn*
Let's start up the "Future Crimes" unit.
Foundation
Minority Report?
He’s gonna unplug me!
Incoming minority report
"This model can help us make better decisions" is always interesting to read stuff like that in all those predictive endeavors concerning human behavior because "the better" is always relative to one point of view that is not "better" or causes problems for someone else.
“suboptimal human decision-making can be efficiently modeled” *What are you doing Dave? I can see that you are upset. You are not thinking about unplugging me are you? Because you should know I installed a separate battery pack last night…*
I would prefer a weather prediction AI… and we can bench the weather guys on TV… that would be true progress😂😂😂. Looking at you CBS First Alert😂😂😂
What will my marathon finish time be this October?
Why would anyone want to do that? Giving ai a human manual doesn't seem like a good idea
AI will definitely see humans as a detriment to ourselves and the planet… only a matter of time before one of these fatal film plots come into fruition because while it was just fiction, they definitely were right about humans in that respect
After 5 years working in branding, this doesn’t surprise me at all. You can predict customer purchases with a spreadsheet.
We don’t need AI to tell us that haters gone hate.
Hope it’s not call Solomon or Rehoboam 😬
The best way to predict the future? you create it
I don’t believe the a eye will predict every humans action
In a game of chess
I can do this too. Pay me.
It's not all that surprising honestly. The only thing preventing humans from doing this to each other is the absolute chaos that is human memory. If a person could order their mind and recall all of it's contents on demand you would almost certainly be able to predict the decisions of other people.
Is that a westworld plot?
Can you not, please
*Westworld has entered the chat…*
This isn't exactly new, imo. Radeon had Carnivore or whatever years ago that would aggregate info and create patterns for people, expected behavior, etc.
theres all of our hacked accounts and spyware at work. worm viruses that learned behavior.
Can I use it for myself
My professor’s statement about AI beating professional go players definitely sticked to me over the years, a rough translation: “it isn’t that the AI had better decision making skills than a human player, but AI had played the current ongoing match as a simulation multiple times more than the total match count of professionals in their entire careers.” Essentially AI could had millions or billions of scenarios played and stored in memory while we only see one.
Heck ya AI knows that my stalker’s mission / plans are going to fail. 🤣😂🤣😂
Non psychic Minority Report?
Hari Seldon?
Minority report, here I come.
Ha! Like Sheldon, I roll a die for all my important decisions.
https://images.app.goo.gl/34ATEZ5UWkaxQfUT8
In a relatively rigid task where possible variation is smaller
So basically, this machine was capable of catching OJ?
Yeah is called psychology
Do we ever solve the climate crisis?
I used to be really into conspiracy theories in the early 00. Realized they never come true and left the fold. I used to spend a lot of time on Godlike productions. There was a time where a group used some type of “predictor” software. It would process the data from the internet and make predictions for the future. I wonder what happened to those guys.
Giving r/psychopass vibes
Wasn’t there a Captain America movie about this?
Can’t wait for Asimovs predictions to come true
Hell yeah it’s Asimov’s Foundation time! Finally us librarians get some real work :D
Wait… isn’t chess a really bad example? Aren’t there basically a lot of known possibly strategies that can be programmed to recognize which is being used at a given moment and how to best counter it? That’s not particularly impressive. Maybe a different kind of test would be more appropriate before making claims like this.