Why your job is safe

An occasional running series intended to pose the question: when will Adam Curtis’ assertion that the vaunted predictive power of big data is a “modern ghost story”.

The JC pontificates about technology
An occasional series.
Goldman’s data wizards predicted this:
We actually got this:
A likely sporting outcome according to Google a couple of years ago
A likely sporting outcome according to Google yesterday
Nice one, Amazon


Index: Click to expand:

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Your job is safe as long as:

  • Those splendid data-wizard brainboxes at Goldman Sachs can get their predictions this wrong ==>
  • Google thinks this ==> is a sensible win prediction for a cricket match.
  • Or, for that matter, this ==>
  • Microsoft’s auto-correct for “bhusiness” suggests “bushiness” but not “business”.
  • Android voice recognition interprets “Richard Strauss” as “Richard’s trouser”.
  • Amazon can send push notification to a customer with adult children and no car, about whom it has 25 years of rich data, guessing that he would like a new car-seat

See also