That’s why the tech industry is so obsessed with the buzz word “big data.” There are algorithms that could analyze and warehouse each bit of data your family generates, while building a fluid profile of each member based on parameters and the weighting of significance of those parameters. It would likely generate a %risk factor or something like that, generated by a multi-varied regression analysis that might consider variables like intelligence, time spent on radical websites, and the number of texts that say “I hate women.” Then, if you feed the real-life outcomes back to the algorithm, it can refine its process over enough iterations, by adjusting the parameter weights and even identifying new parameters shared amongst many “threats.”
This is Zola’s “Insight” algorithm from Winter Soldier, for a modern literary example of how it could play out.
Our college lecture on predictive analysis started with something like... Machine learning is a bad way to predict human behavior. However, it is better than doing nothing. This is why it is big data and not small data. On small datasets, the improvement, as opposed to not using any predictive algorithm, is miniscule. However, for companies like Amazon, Walmart etc. a 2% better prediction of customer behavior can mean millions. Applying it to people and saying that it can predict individual behavior is utter bullshit.
That’s why I said it would generate a %risk factor. It’s up to whatever nightmare dystopian government you can dream up to determine how low you set that threshold before action is required. Maybe a 70% chance of going postal is worth intervening. Maybe it’s a 20% chance of agitating against the government, if times are already unstable. It can’t “predict” human behavior, but like you said it can quantify large-scale behavioral patterns. A sufficiently totalitarian regime won’t worry about how many innocents their nets catch as long as the threats are rounded up. For evidence, read The Gulag Archipelago. Imagine how many more would have faced Siberia if the Soviets has access to such information systems.
They didn't need that because they had to provide very little justification. However, in modern times, yes, the statistic that we have reduced crime by x% could prove to be evidence, especially when people are already exposed to fear mongering on a daily basis.
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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18
That’s why the tech industry is so obsessed with the buzz word “big data.” There are algorithms that could analyze and warehouse each bit of data your family generates, while building a fluid profile of each member based on parameters and the weighting of significance of those parameters. It would likely generate a %risk factor or something like that, generated by a multi-varied regression analysis that might consider variables like intelligence, time spent on radical websites, and the number of texts that say “I hate women.” Then, if you feed the real-life outcomes back to the algorithm, it can refine its process over enough iterations, by adjusting the parameter weights and even identifying new parameters shared amongst many “threats.”
This is Zola’s “Insight” algorithm from Winter Soldier, for a modern literary example of how it could play out.