Slashdot Mirror
Using a Supercomputer To Predict Revolutions
bLanark writes "A fascinating article from Singularity Hub describes software which, when fed news, makes predictions about forthcoming events. When given information on recent events, it spiked before the Egyptian and Libyan uprisings. It uses various sources including the News Bank which is a database of global news."
Foundation anyone?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
"Spiking" before the Egyptian and Libyan uprisings is nothing impressive, without more information about when it has and hasn't "spiked".
It's much easier to look for spikes or what your data looks like *after* an important event has taken place, than to actually predict them. I'm sure that even if I look at my computer logs on a significant date, there's most likely something there that I would class as interesting or out of the ordinary, in hindsight, too...
...we will see martial law declared preemptively, military and police forces will start flooding areas before anything can happen, and people who the computer says will be key figures in the revolution will be preemptively jailed and/or executed.
Don't get your hopes up, kids. This isn't the Foundation, and it won't be used to save civilization, it will be used to keep people already in power from even having a chance of losing that power. If you haven't noticed, the folks running the show think the only value of civilization is that it gives them a system within which to gain power and wealth.
"We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be." - Joss Whedon via Angel
But predicting future ones is even more challenging.
Zzzz.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking