We live in an incredible period in history. The Computer Revolution may be even more life-changing than the Industrial Revolution. We can do things with computers that could never be done before, and computers can do things for us that could never be done before.
But our love of computers should not cloud our thinking about their limitations.
We are told that computers are smarter than humans and that data mining can identify previously unknown truths, or make discoveries that will revolutionize our lives. Our lives may well be changed, but not necessarily for the better. Computers are very good at discovering patterns, but are useless in judging whether the unearthed patterns are sensible because computers do not think the way humans think.
We fear that super-intelligent machines will decide to protect themselves by enslaving or eliminating humans. But the real danger is not that computers are smarter than us, but that we think computers are smarter than us and, so, trust computers to make important decisions for us.
The AI Delusion explains why we should not be intimidated into thinking that computers are infallible, that data-mining is knowledge discovery, and that black boxes should be trusted
Author(s): Gary Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Commentary: Complete book
Pages: 256
Cover......Page 1
The Al Delusion......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Introduction......Page 8
Chapter 1. Intelligent or obedient?......Page 14
Tic-tac-toe......Page 17
Checkers......Page 20
Chapter 2. Doing without thinking......Page 28
The fuel and fire of thinking......Page 29
Superhuman......Page 35
Singularity......Page 36
Emotions......Page 38
Critical thinking......Page 40
The Turing test......Page 42
Chinese room thought experiment......Page 46
Translation software......Page 48
Can computers read?......Page 52
Can computers write?......Page 54
InspiroBot......Page 56
Seeing things in context......Page 57
Tanks, trees, and clouds......Page 60
The cat and the vase......Page 61
Chapter 4. Bad data......Page 64
Self-selection bias......Page 66
Correlation is not causation......Page 71
The power of time......Page 73
Survivor bias......Page 74
Fake data......Page 75
Recognizing bad data......Page 77
Chapter 5. Patterns in randomness......Page 80
Data mining......Page 84
Knowledge discovery......Page 86
Black boxes......Page 87
Big data, big computers, big trouble......Page 89
A conflict of interest......Page 90
Hard-wired to be deceived......Page 91
Seduced by patterns......Page 92
An example of random noise......Page 93
Amateur weather forecasting......Page 95
The Smith test......Page 98
Chapter 6. If you torture the data long enough......Page 100
Mendel......Page 101
The Texas sharpshooter fallacy......Page 102
Data mining......Page 103
QuickStop......Page 104
Torturing data......Page 106
Retroactive recall......Page 107
Money priming......Page 109
Seek and you will find......Page 111
The Laugher Curve......Page 115
It's not you, it's me......Page 118
Great to good......Page 119
Aggressiveness and attractiveness......Page 121
The Dartmouth salmon study......Page 123
Quack, quack......Page 124
Chapter 7. The kitchen sink......Page 126
Predicting presidential elections......Page 129
The secret sauce......Page 132
Nonlinear models......Page 138
Stepwise regression......Page 144
Ridge regression......Page 146
Data reduction......Page 148
Neural network algorithms......Page 151
Blinded by math......Page 154
Chapter 9. Take two aspirin......Page 156
Call me in the morning......Page 157
I'll have another cup......Page 159
Distant healing......Page 160
Cancer clusters......Page 162
Most proven treatments don't work......Page 164
Data mining......Page 166
Too much chaff, not enough wheat......Page 169
Chapter 10. Beat the market I......Page 170
Noise......Page 171
Wacky theories......Page 172
Technical analysis......Page 175
An inverted head and shoulders......Page 176
Flipping coins......Page 179
Wall Street Week's ten technical indicators......Page 180
Market breadth......Page 181
Low-price activity ratio......Page 182
Advisory service sentiment......Page 183
Tweet, tweet......Page 184
Technical gurus......Page 185
The Foolish Four......Page 186
Black box investing for fun and profit......Page 187
Chapter 11. Beat the market II......Page 190
The stock market and the weather......Page 191
Try, try again......Page 193
The set-aside solution......Page 196
Real data mining......Page 200
Royal Dutch/Shell......Page 201
The GSR......Page 204
Another convergence trade......Page 206
High-frequency trading......Page 209
The flash crash......Page 211
The bottom line......Page 212
Chapter 12. We're watching you......Page 214
A pregnancy predictor......Page 217
Google Flu......Page 218
Robo-Tester......Page 220
Job applications......Page 221
Job advertisements......Page 223
Loan applications......Page 224
Car insurance......Page 226
Social credit scores......Page 228
Unreasonable searches......Page 229
Watch your wristbands......Page 231
Do you need plastic surgery?......Page 233
Gaming the system......Page 235
MAD......Page 238
Conclusion......Page 242
Bibliography......Page 246
Index......Page 254
