Math Unlikely to Replace People in Political Predictions
December 25, 2012
One of the victors in the recent election season, though he was not running for any office, was a prominent wielder of big data. Nate Silver‘s remarkably accurate, mathematically-driven election predictions have some asking whether the role of political pundits is waning. Tech Crunch’s Matt Baker asserts that the human element will always be a factor in “Human After All: Why Nate Silver’s Math Revolution Won’t Kill the Pundits.”
It is true that math-based predictions like those of Silver and others, such as Votamatic.org and the Princeton Election Consortium, significantly outperformed gut-based forecasts from political commentators. In fact, Researcher Philip Tetlock found pundit predictions to be “little better than random.” What’s more, he found that the prognosticators with the worst records are the ones most widely cited in the media! One could be forgiven, then, for supposing the more accurate algorithms are bound to replace these purveyors of truthiness.
Baker, however, insists that algorithms, themselves the products of human minds, can never exist outside of human bias. He writes:
“Nate Silver’s mysterious secret sauce is still an unknown, and while he shared many features of his model, it was ultimately inaccessible to peer review. Without transparency, there’s even more danger the creator of statistical models could fall prey to the same faults that Tetlock found in pundits.
“Models are tools. They far exceed our own ability to condense and process the multitude of data available in areas like politics and finance. They can inform us, and even forecast for us, but they are only as strong as the rigor employed by their authors. Nov. 6, 2012, was not the triumph of data over pundits; it was a watershed event in the evolution of our predictions. We’re witnessing a revolution in the tools and accuracy of experts, but our forecasts will always be human.”
So, we can expect math to help our predictions get better, but they will never be free from human influence. See the article for more details and examples that support Baker’s premise. I happen to agree with him, despite my very opinion that the world would be a better place with fewer political pundits in it. Oh well.
Cynthia Murrell, December 25, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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