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Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

pplapi.com

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Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#31

Post by philtar »

ideonexus wrote: post #15
idm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a synthetic world population derived from public population data; these are not real people (i.e. human subjects) and the source raw data were not identifiable or even individual-level data. I nevertheless think there are a number of issues raised by the possibility of a human population database, but to be clear: pplapi does not have actual people in it. I am currently writing about some of these issues.

Until I looked at the actual data, I didn't realize this was synthetic either. The developer might want to make that clear in the header text. "Virtual Database" doesn't make this clear. I think "virtual database synthesizing the entire human population" might make it clearer. That said. This is very impressive and has my imagination tingling with ways to apply it.

It was very clear to me from the title.

And secondly, I don't believe the author should pander to people who won't even visit the site and instead judge from titles.

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#32

Post by divbit »

philtar wrote: post #31
ideonexus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until I looked at the actual data, I didn't realize this was synthetic either. The developer might want to make that clear in the header text. "Virtual Database" doesn't make this clear. I think "virtual database synthesizing the entire human population" might make it clearer. That said. This is very impressive and has my imagination tingling with ways to apply it.

It was very clear to me from the title. And secondly, I don't believe the author should pander to people who won't even visit the site and instead judge from titles.

I think virtual can either mean: stored /accessed on a computer, or simulated on a computer, which is what confused me.

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#33

Post by legulere »

lotyrin wrote: post #21
legulere wrote: post #11

Maybe the website should tell that this is a synthetic dataset, it is not clear from it.

This and the many similar comments are pretty confusing to me; with the common-sense context of how massively impossible it would be to have actual individual row-level facts on the entire population (with any choice for column[s]) "virtual database of the entire human population" seems it should be sufficiently clear about the nature of the project.

After a while it was also clear to me that this is synthetic data, but at first the wording sounds like this is real data, which lead to a bit of confusion.

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#34

Post by sago »

dom0 wrote: post #14

DOB: 2012-09-09 Age: 5 Language: Russian Religion: Muslim 10-15% Income: $18466 USD Hmmm

It works by taking independent distributions and sampling them independently.

So any time you lack cross-correlation data (and age vs income isn't a widely available public data source) it will assume the data is uncorrelated, and you'll get this kind of error.

Whether it reduces the utility of the data depends on the use case. I suspect it often will.

I did think that referencing social networks is a bit off, since this isn't a social network model. We have those, this isn't one.

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#36

Post by SoftwareCSpace »

idm wrote: post #6
divbit wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, when one does a university research study in the US involving human subjects there are something like IRB requirements (e.g. [ http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/ ] I see research mentioned on the website, and also that the entire world population is mentioned in the data set. Have you run into anything like this?

It's a synthetic world population derived from public population data; these are not real people (i.e. human subjects) and the source raw data were not identifiable or even individual-level data. I nevertheless think there are a number of issues raised by the possibility of a human population database, but to be clear: pplapi does not have actual people in it. I am currently writing about some of these issues.

I did look at the data, and wasn't sure if it was real people, or what the source was.

I then searched the site, and couldn't find a description of what the project was, nor the data it contained.

Finally I came here to the comments to find out.

I consider the site a failure if it doesn't answer obvious questions about what it is, an unfortunate failure that is common in new 'lean startup' pages etc -

In defense against these sites that wants me to sign up etc before I know what it is, I simply forget them and their name and never mention them to anyone. It helps me sleep knowing I'm only supporting honest sites that explain what they are and what they do .. ymmv

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#38

Post by evolve2k »

Wow facinating. It was fun to just keep clicking random and read the stats of the virtual populace.

What does it mean by age 0 (unborn), how are those entries in there. E.g. http://pplapi.com/3187300229.html

Do you plan to simulate deaths as times go by and their stated birthdate puts their age above expected mortality and add more new "babies" as well, is that what I'm seeing? If not would be cool.

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#39

Post by basch »

divbit wrote: post #32
philtar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was very clear to me from the title. And secondly, I don't believe the author should pander to people who won't even visit the site and instead judge from titles.

I think virtual can either mean: stored /accessed on a computer, or simulated on a computer, which is what confused me.

where do you hear virtual used to mean digital data and not simulated or emulated. a virtual machine is a synthetic digital representation of physical hardware. virtual reality is a fake representation of reality. virtual memory is a simulacron of ram. a virtual assistant is not a dedicated helper.

i just googled the word virtual

     not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so.

     in effect or essence, if not in fact or reality; imitated, simulated. 

     simulated in a computer or online.
I suppose a counter example could be a virtual library, which is a digital representation of a library, not a simulation, but still the word virtual is not wrong in this context, if anything is confusing it is the word order. maybe A Database of Virtual ... instead of A Virtual Database

Re: Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population

#40

Post by ideonexus »

basch wrote: post #39
divbit wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think virtual can either mean: stored /accessed on a computer, or simulated on a computer, which is what confused me.

where do you hear virtual used to mean digital data and not simulated or emulated. a virtual machine is a synthetic digital representation of physical hardware. virtual reality is a fake representation of reality. virtual memory is a simulacron of ram. a virtual assistant is not a dedicated helper. i just googled the word virtual not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so. in effect or es…

How to make it clear what this data represents is a semantic conundrum. If I take a "virtual" tour of New York City, I expect to see an actual geographically-accurate approximation of New York City, not buildings randomly generated based on the probabilities of buildings having various dimensions of those found in New York City strewn across a google map.

What do we call such a thing? After reading the author's paper, I think "synthetic" is most appropriate because we would be synthesizing a city like NYC, but not a virtual representation of NYC. In fact, I find the word "virtual" in this context somewhat misleading.

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