Predictive Analytics: Trouble Ahead?
October 28, 2014
I learned about a new book that will be available in early 2015. Its title is The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. The author is Frank Pasquale, a professor of law at the University of Maryland.
The Harvard promotional Web site for the book asserts:
Hidden algorithms can make (or ruin) reputations, decide the destiny of entrepreneurs, or even devastate an entire economy. Shrouded in secrecy and complexity, decisions at major Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms were long assumed to be neutral and technical. But leaks, whistleblowers, and legal disputes have shed new light on automated judgment. Self-serving and reckless behavior is surprisingly common, and easy to hide in code protected by legal and real secrecy. Even after billions of dollars of fines have been levied, underfunded regulators may have only scratched the surface of this troubling behavior.
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies mentioned the forthcoming book here. One of the comments about that post was interesting to me. TooManyJoes wrote:
The control of the results by the decision makers is what makes this future menacing. Right now, Google is under attack being too good at search prediction and making money on targeted advertisements whose brilliantly written algorithms allow such a sophisticated variety of information to be indexed. As a result search bubbles have formed, and a lack of statistics comprehension prevents the awareness of control over this new medium. Snake oil salesmen turned into Mad Men and psychiatrists, it’s the medium of internet based controlled by one snake oil salesman that frightens us all. I believe it’s not possible without a formal computational human algorithm to have enough of an impact to have widespread influence. I bring up these mediums because to engage in them is to participate, participation can be tracked, then imagine the expense of the things we have access to because free participation drives those products and services by up selling those products. Without education, which most people won’t be open to, and time for the common man to analyze the data…those in control of the data will be people delegated by others. Welcome to the age of transparency.
The Google reference may presage some discussion of the company’s predictive wizardry.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2014
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