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You Are So Predictable: The Explosion of Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics enables governments and companies to not only predict the future, but also to influence the future.

You have been predicted — by companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities. Their computers say, “I knew you were going to do that!” These institutions are seizing upon the power to predict whether you’re going to click, buy, lie, or die.

So writes Eric Siegel in his bookPredictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die. Siegel, a former professor at Columbia University, shows how predictive analytics is “powered by the world’s most potent, booming unnatural resource: data.”

So what do governments and companies do with this gold mine? In the video below, Siegel tells Big Think that these entities not only have the power to predict the future “but also to influence the future.”  

Watch the video here:

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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