From Tea Leaves to AI: Why Today’s High-Tech Predictions Are So Dangerous

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Editors’ note: Welcome to CNET’s new series of guest columns called Alt View, a forum for a diverse array of experts and luminaries to share their insights into the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence. For more AI coverage, check out CNET’s AI Atlas.

“How are you using AI?” I asked a class full of executives. Some of the answers I have heard before: health professionals using it to read medical images; managers using it to draft emails; a retail company using it to take notes in meetings before giving up on it when they realized that the AI confabulated and had no understanding of context. And then, a gem. There’s almost always a gem.

“I use chatbots as fortune tellers,” said a middle-aged Asian woman with a beige cardigan and white sneakers. I would later learn that she has built a billion-dollar empire. A nervous rustle spreads throughout the room as people shift uncomfortably in their seats. “Just like we used to read tea leaves, you can ask AI about the future, and it can be surprisingly accurate. For example, it recently correctly predicted a 2% rise in the stock market,” the student said, nodding and looking around the room while her classmates avoid eye contact.

Today’s ruling soothsayers are no longer astrologers, astronomers, sociologists or even economists; they are computer scientists, data analysts and engineers. Algorithms are the new tea leaves, animal entrails and stars through which we hope to catch a glimpse of the future.

We tend to associate predictions with knowledge, but all too often, they are closer to the realm of power. Prophecies are the boxing ring in which fights over the future take place. Our expectations bend the social world toward our predictions. When someone forecasts that the world will be a certain way, they are commanding that others obey their wishes and bring that world about. Even though we have been using predictions for thousands of years to make some of the most important decisions of our lives,…

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