4.2 A Digital “Crystal Ball”?
65
4.2 A Digital “Crystal Ball”?
Until recently, we have successfully used supercomputers for almost everything,
except for understanding our economy, society and politics. Every new car or airplane
is designed, simulated and tested on a computer before they are built. Increasingly, the
same is true for the research and development of medical drugs. Thus, why shouldn’t
we use computers to understand and guide our economy and society, too? In fact, we
are moving in this direction. As a minor (yet illustrative) example, computers have
been used for traffic control since their early days. In the meantime, also modern
production and supply chain management would be inconceivable without computerized control. Already since some time, airplanes are controlled by a majority decision
among a few computers, and driverless, computer-controlled cars will soon traverse
our streets. In all of these cases, computers do a better job than humans. If they are
better pilots, drivers, and chess players, why shouldn’t computers eventually make
better policemen, administrators, lawyers, and politicians, too?
Given today’s data volume and computational power, it seems no longer unreasonable to imagine a gigantic computer system that tries to simulate the actions and
interactions of all humans globally. In such a digital mirror world our virtual doubles
might be even equipped with cognitive abilities and decision-making capacities. If
we fed these virtual humans with our own personal data, how similar to us would
they behave?
3 Would it eventually be possible to create a digital copy of our world,
a virtual reality as realistic as life itself?
Recent studies using smartphone data and GPS records suggest that the activity
of a person at a particular time can often be forecast with an accuracy of more than
90%.
4 Our lives are surprisingly predictable due to our repetitive daily and weekly
schedules and routines. It is also possible to determine our personality traits and
attributes.
5 There are even companies such as Palantir and Recorded Future, which
have developed sophisticated tools for predictive analytics and are trying to build a
digital “crystal ball”. The military in the USA is engaged in similar projects,
6 and it
is likely that the same applies to other countries.
Although the prospect of building a digital crystal ball might sound ominous to
some, we should carefully discuss it. The potential benefits are obvious, as there
are many huge problems that might be solved with such predictive capabilities. The
financial crisis has created global losses of at least $15 trillion. Crime and corruption
consume about 2–5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of all nations on earth—
about $2 trillion each year. A major influenza pandemic infecting 1% of the world’s
population might cause losses of $1–2 trillion per year. The wars post September 11
3 We certainly could not expect real humans and their virtual doubles to be more similar than
“identical” twins.
4 Song et al. [1].
5 Kosinski et al. [2].
6 Can the military make a prediction machine?, see http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/
04/can-military-make-prediction-machine/109561/.
65
4.2 A Digital “Crystal Ball”?
Until recently, we have successfully used supercomputers for almost everything,
except for understanding our economy, society and politics. Every new car or airplane
is designed, simulated and tested on a computer before they are built. Increasingly, the
same is true for the research and development of medical drugs. Thus, why shouldn’t
we use computers to understand and guide our economy and society, too? In fact, we
are moving in this direction. As a minor (yet illustrative) example, computers have
been used for traffic control since their early days. In the meantime, also modern
production and supply chain management would be inconceivable without computerized control. Already since some time, airplanes are controlled by a majority decision
among a few computers, and driverless, computer-controlled cars will soon traverse
our streets. In all of these cases, computers do a better job than humans. If they are
better pilots, drivers, and chess players, why shouldn’t computers eventually make
better policemen, administrators, lawyers, and politicians, too?
Given today’s data volume and computational power, it seems no longer unreasonable to imagine a gigantic computer system that tries to simulate the actions and
interactions of all humans globally. In such a digital mirror world our virtual doubles
might be even equipped with cognitive abilities and decision-making capacities. If
we fed these virtual humans with our own personal data, how similar to us would
they behave?
3 Would it eventually be possible to create a digital copy of our world,
a virtual reality as realistic as life itself?
Recent studies using smartphone data and GPS records suggest that the activity
of a person at a particular time can often be forecast with an accuracy of more than
90%.
4 Our lives are surprisingly predictable due to our repetitive daily and weekly
schedules and routines. It is also possible to determine our personality traits and
attributes.
5 There are even companies such as Palantir and Recorded Future, which
have developed sophisticated tools for predictive analytics and are trying to build a
digital “crystal ball”. The military in the USA is engaged in similar projects,
6 and it
is likely that the same applies to other countries.
Although the prospect of building a digital crystal ball might sound ominous to
some, we should carefully discuss it. The potential benefits are obvious, as there
are many huge problems that might be solved with such predictive capabilities. The
financial crisis has created global losses of at least $15 trillion. Crime and corruption
consume about 2–5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of all nations on earth—
about $2 trillion each year. A major influenza pandemic infecting 1% of the world’s
population might cause losses of $1–2 trillion per year. The wars post September 11
3 We certainly could not expect real humans and their virtual doubles to be more similar than
“identical” twins.
4 Song et al. [1].
5 Kosinski et al. [2].
6 Can the military make a prediction machine?, see http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/
04/can-military-make-prediction-machine/109561/.