Jonathan Bartlett offers some thoughts on a frantic, bizarre – but instructive – computer-driven prediction:
The problem with all “models of the world,” as the video puts it, is that they ignore two vitally important factors. First, models can only go so deep in terms of the scale of analysis to attempt. You can always add layers—and it is never clear when a layer that is completely unseen at one scale becomes vitally important at another. Predicting higher-order effects from lower scales is often impossible, and it is rarely clear when one can be discarded for another. … “1973 Computer Prediction: World Will End in 2040” at Mind Matters News
Note: Viewers may find the attitudes to experts and to computers shown in the video both quaint and disturbing. For that reason, the video is a helpful reminder of the limits of both.
See also: Fun: Why do experts suffer from a “peculiar blindness”? Epstein: The result: The experts were, by and large, horrific forecasters.
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