The New Nostradamus

I watched the History channel show this evening and was not terribly impressed at his so-called prediction capabilities.

It's a proprietary algorithm that he doesn't share with anyone so there is no real way to know what he is really doing.

Based on what I saw it sounds more like a modeling approach to decision making--e.g. identifying scenarios and the variables and using a model to produce an outcome.

It's not like he is stating "this will happen", but if X and Y occur, Z will happen.

In all honestly I thought the show did a terrible job at describing any of his so called predictions--it was lacking in any form of detail and basic journalism, but then again it was meant as entertainment.

delius

reply to post by constantwonder


"Its not predicting the future only reading the collective consious of the worlds web users. "


...only reading the collective conscious of the worlds web users. I'd just like to take a moment to tribute the significance of such an act. A computer is able to collect and classify enough information to qualify 'the collective conscious of the worlds web users'. That's a task that few dared dream of 20 years ago.

I next want to illustrate the basis for reinforcement learning (mostly to re-orient myself with the notion). Given a defined domain, and a method to quantify the ramifications of a result based on a representative set of domain attributes (predicting future events based on current and past observations of the outcome of events): to predict an the outcome of an event you need to first be able to describe the domain. A simulation of all valid action paths within the domain is the exhaustive way to do it. Doing so over and over allows for this theoretical implementation to recursively allow current states to consider future states, ultimately allowing for any given state to converge upon a probability for each action. This means that given a representative simulation, the probability of all future states can be qualified. That is only if the model takes on the markov-process, which essentially entails no variability in the current state. This notion has been around before I was...

Further advances in the 90's have alleviated this dependency with limited successes in function approximations most noted by neural networks. But the application requires unrealistic computational means to generate answers such as "what's the outcome of this war".

My new favorite advance in AI (which I admittedly haven't tried out) is the integration of chaos theory and random fractal theory into the underlying statistical models described above to mitigate the prohibitive computational means issue. This approach has shown promising results in fields that had before been thought to be impossible to accurately quantify. Examples include weather prediction and sea clutter quantification to name a few.

So perhaps I'm a bit of an AI enthusiast. But given the fact that 20 years ago, automating the compilation of the 'collective conscious' of a majority was thought to be a dream at best; 15 years ago we laughed at the notion of a computer rivaling an expert. And now, after 15 years of research, it seems the general opinion is skeptical.

I'd like to encourage the idea that the mathematical elements are all sound. And that either the extension or reintegration of these elements may very well be sound given a proper representation of the attributes of the domain to consider. Even if Bruce simply associates probabilities to determine the maximum likelyhood, it is still a maximum likelyhood of what would seem to be a prohibitive number of variables and co-dependencies.

I'm sure I won't be back to check on this post. But I'm interested in any follow ups. If you'd like to reach me at my casual email address
[email protected]
title the email with 'AI discussion'.

polishWan

Thanks for posting this. I caught the last half of this show. I thought it was different than the webbot thing. I didn't really catch any hard and fast predictions though. Anyone else catch any.. A lot of general mentions to global warming mixed in with Nostradamus quatrains.. I did hear mention of Game theory which serves as the basis of his work.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Anonymous ATS

We are imbued with a spirit from and of God. Seeing into a future or a past can happen and when it does, the animal in you always questions the event. Perfecting the ability is considered heathen. Nonetheless, when it happens, relish the event.

reply to post by whoshotJR

The black pudel, Ms. Rize, used to come to GA to meet a specific person who was rumored to have the "skill" interpreting the Bible a suitable way for Neocons. Nothing was wrong until suddenly they may have actually taken it seriously in the W-land.

This new Nostradamus in History channel was fake and not worth a penny and not a position in a university. He did not even understand what he was saying.

All is based on simple issue: only less than 1% of people understand math and that person was not one of them - and the rest are afraid to talk with them as they simply do not understand these overly logical nuts leaving often half of the words out in a sentence as too obvious.

This new Nostradamus shows the power of the Neocons. The rulers have always done it this way: 1) plan first how to get the loot (like oil), 2) send a trusted emissary to meet the Oracle in Delphoi; 3) interprete the answers from the Oracle to the public the way you want; 4) rally people behind you, use religion and terrorism as they usually work and start the war that you planned ( just when you lose it remember, the Gods on Olympos do not care who you are even if you are an emperor).

Tursas

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicts Iran's future at TED



Previous predictions:

* Forecasted the second Intifada and the death of the Mideast peace process, two years before it happened.
* Defied Russia specialists by predicting who would succeed Brezhnev. “The model identified Andropov, who nobody at the time even considered a possibility,” he says.
* Predicted that Daniel Ortega and the Sandanistas would be voted out of office in Nicaragua, two years before it happened.
* Four months before Tiananmen Square, said China’s hardliners would crack down harshly on dissidents.
* Predicted France’s hair’s-breadth passage of the European Union’s Maastricht Treaty.
* Predicted the exact implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between Britain and the IRA.
* Predicted China’s reclaiming of Hong Kong and the exact manner the handover would take place, 12 years before it happened.
* Predicted the rise of Ali Khamenei as the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini as the supreme leader of Iran, years before it occured. Khamenei at the time did not have the credentials to succeed Khomeini and Khomeini had already designated another more qualified successor. Hence Khamenei, at the time, was not even considered as a possiblity.
* Predicted that Iran will not build a nuclear bomb but will continue to enrich uranium.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hari Seldon,

does he remind you of him?



en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 11-10-2009 by fooks]

I just watched it but only halfway through. The first thing that came to my mind was that "Timewave Zero" thing. However, I can't seem to understand exactly how he could predict it in the programme. I have to read it here just to know how he's doing it.

The weird part is that I had just finished watching "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" before tuning in to History. I have to say that Nostradamus' voiceover in the movie was a lot more ominous than the voiceover in the Bueno de Mosquita documentary.