The Pandemic has got me thinking. On TV, people of the future are always very comfortable with data. They collect it. They analyze it. They adjust their strategies in real time. Not in days or hours or minutes but often literally in SECONDS.🧵👇
They run simulations of different outcomes. The simulations aren't always right but they seem to put them in the ballpark of what's reasonable. People take the simulations and data seriously. They factor them into their planning.
Even when the future government is evil, it's still smart. Even when the future government is rigid and uncreative in how it responds to stuff, it's responses are still logically related to the assumptions it has made, the data it has collected and the analyses it has performed.
Unfortunately, our civilization is NOT THAT. We collect data but usually haphazardly and in ways that make it hard to draw any conclusions. It often takes a long time for us to make sense of data. Politicians often throw out the numbers completely.
We don't seem to care what the probability of various outcomes are. We don't seem to use probabilities when making decisions. Perhaps, you're thinking about the election predictions and about how they were close but not quite right.
On TV, future people know the probabilities are just ESTIMATES. They know that the computer is just doing a straightforward extrapolation from the data. They don't hold it against the computer that it can't see the curveballs.
We are approximately a year into the pandemic and I can't say "ALEXA, what is my probability of being infected today?" She has no estimates.
Just before I enter a bad spot, wouldn't it be great if Alexa could chime in and say "WARNING KAREEM. I estimate a 96% chance of infection if you enter this building."
Personally, I walk around taking MAXIMUM precautions at all time and that hypervigilance has been costing me psychologically. So, it would be nice to have a little computer buddy looking out for me and letting me know when I have to be extra careful.
Why don't I know immediately how many people around me are infected? Anonymized of course. It could just be a single number indicating threat level. It doesn't have to say who it is.
Shouldn't the US government have a state by state, county by county simulation of the spread of the disease? Shouldn't we all be able to access it?
Forget hover boards, trips to mars and self-driving cars. This doesn't require new discoveries, it's just numbers and code. It's weird because even though WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY, WE DON'T SEEM TO HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. Why is that?
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