Saddle Up, Statistical Analytics Fans. Place Your Bets on AI
December 7, 2020
“The Best Way to Win a Horse Race? Mathematicians May Have the Answer” is an interesting example of a snappy headline not supported by the write up’s text. For gamblers, the promise of finding a way to predict which mighty steed will cross the finish line first is catnip. (Sorry for the mixed animal metaphor, but I could not resist.) The problem is that the summary of the study includes lots of references to data collection and number crunching. Then the killer statement:
Various other scientific attempts to explain performance over the past 4 decades “haven’t been particularly successful,” he says—and not just because horses vary so much in body size and aerobic capacity: The models cannot account for the horse’s own behaviors. For example, a horse might give up when another horse passes it, because it doesn’t understand that it’s supposed to win. Until researchers can get inside the horse’s head and account for psychological variables, Knight says, “we can’t truly model performance.”
Net net: If one can’t model an equine, what’s that suggest for figuring out what human will cross an innovation finish line, crack a tough problem, or write a headline which does mislead the pony player?
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2020
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