Authors@Google: Ian Ayres - Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart
Ian Ayres is an economist and lawyer, and is the William K. Townsend Professor at Yale Law School, and a professor at Yale’s School of Management. He has a personal website here: http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers
He firstly introduces us to two main methods of mathematical analysis: regression and random testing. He then proceeds by way of examples to show how these methods, applied with sufficient size, speed and scale, are more effective than human experts at making predictions, and the consequent implications.
There’s some fascinating stuff here - and some scary stuff. It looks to me like some of these technologies take advantage of the lag between technological capability and social awareness, but I don’t think they properly consider the impact that social awareness could have…
