FB and its believers think that the chances are high enough to make big money, or at least that they can make them high enough.
In actuality they aren't. You might think about booking the flight, but the chances of you actually reaching for the credit card based on idly looking at photos are too small to do worthwhile targeted ads.
The idea that FB can just tune their algorithms until they know exactly what you're thinking is a fantasy based on...
1. an overly optimistic estimation of the SNR ratio of the info people put into FB, and
2. on the hilarious fallacies of the aforementioned Market Economics Fairy which assumes that everyone is always a rational actor, and that everything people do has definite reasons behind it which can be traced and understood, and their future behaviour predicted from, and crucially that these reasons can be modelled with traditional reductionism. This is plainly not true.
Admittedly my opinions here are based on guesswork, just like FBs are, but I contend that I have the benefit of drawing my conclusions without a hundred billion dollars worth of wishful thinking clouding my vision.
And that's why the message to Harvard graduates[1] (purportedly America's brightest rational minds) makes deliberate reference to a man[2] who has consistently proven this to be false. The message also is centered around another pillar of rationality: the idea of "luck".
1. A link to this was recently posted here on HN.
2. One who was "lucky" enough to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
FB and its believers think that the chances are high enough to make big money, or at least that they can make them high enough.
In actuality they aren't. You might think about booking the flight, but the chances of you actually reaching for the credit card based on idly looking at photos are too small to do worthwhile targeted ads.
The idea that FB can just tune their algorithms until they know exactly what you're thinking is a fantasy based on...
1. an overly optimistic estimation of the SNR ratio of the info people put into FB, and
2. on the hilarious fallacies of the aforementioned Market Economics Fairy which assumes that everyone is always a rational actor, and that everything people do has definite reasons behind it which can be traced and understood, and their future behaviour predicted from, and crucially that these reasons can be modelled with traditional reductionism. This is plainly not true.
Admittedly my opinions here are based on guesswork, just like FBs are, but I contend that I have the benefit of drawing my conclusions without a hundred billion dollars worth of wishful thinking clouding my vision.