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Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

arxiv.org

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Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#31

Post by jedberg »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #28
SCUSKU wrote: post #27

Part of me wants to be able to encode my life2vec and see what the next predicted tokens are. On the other hand, as much as going to a fortune teller sounds fun to me, I worry that if I go I will simply make what they say come true since I will be anxious about what the fortune teller said. That said, my life is already on a certain track, and because I'm afraid of change, it's unlikely to be much different than it w…

> because I'm afraid of change, it's unlikely to be much different than it was before Life changing events are often out of your control

That's sometimes but not always, or even often, true. You're thinking of accidents or death. But what about marriage or jobs or education or divorce? Those usually require an active choice (or many of them).

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#32

Post by p-e-w »

> Our work has important societal and ethical implications, which we outline in the Discussion as well as in Methods, Sec. 4.1, and SI: Model Card.

Maybe those ethical implications should have led to the decision not to pursue this avenue of research at all, or not to publish the results.

These "ethics disclaimers" are so stupid. It's as if scientists believe that they can somehow free themselves from moral responsibility by waxing philosophical about the ethical implications of their research in an appendix.

That's not how it works, folks. By choosing to publish, you have already incurred shared responsibility for whatever is built upon your work. Claiming that you have "considered" this means Jack Shit.

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#33

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

zmgsabst wrote: post #16
wharvle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time we get better at things like this, all the power tends to stay with organizations, and individual people are lucky if they get anything out of it. Amazon, Wal-Mart, MacDonalds, giant banks, insurers, et c., analyze their competition, suppliers, and consumers in great detail with computer data and models. Where’s the widespread automated buyer’s agent for consumers, to balance that power so strongly that it…

Scraping is legal; as are assistive technologies. What’s lacking is the collective willpower to develop social organizations, which could orchestrate and fund such efforts. There’s a complete lack of organization among the public. The problem is neither technical nor legislative: people just don’t care to, and are happier accepting the status quo.

Except on LinkedIn apparentlt.

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#34

Post by junofan »

p-e-w wrote: post #32

> Our work has important societal and ethical implications, which we outline in the Discussion as well as in Methods, Sec. 4.1, and SI: Model Card. Maybe those ethical implications should have led to the decision not to pursue this avenue of research at all, or not to publish the results. These "ethics disclaimers" are so stupid. It's as if scientists believe that they can somehow free themselves from moral responsib…

Strange to see these ideas on a site called “Hacker News” given the “hacker ethic” is to make information available to all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#36

Post by p-e-w »

junofan wrote: post #34
p-e-w wrote: post #32

> Our work has important societal and ethical implications, which we outline in the Discussion as well as in Methods, Sec. 4.1, and SI: Model Card. Maybe those ethical implications should have led to the decision not to pursue this avenue of research at all, or not to publish the results. These "ethics disclaimers" are so stupid. It's as if scientists believe that they can somehow free themselves from moral responsib…

Strange to see these ideas on a site called “Hacker News” given the “hacker ethic” is to make information available to all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic

Like other vague, vogue philosophical concepts, the Hacker Ethic is many things to many people.

To me, "every avenue of research must be pursued at any human cost, and ethics are at best an afterthought" has nothing to do with being a Hacker.

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#38

Post by nsagent »

jedberg wrote: post #31
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because I'm afraid of change, it's unlikely to be much different than it was before Life changing events are often out of your control

That's sometimes but not always, or even often, true. You're thinking of accidents or death. But what about marriage or jobs or education or divorce? Those usually require an active choice (or many of them).

That's a debated topic. See the recent book by Stanford neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will."

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#39

Post by jedberg »

nsagent wrote: post #38
jedberg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sometimes but not always, or even often, true. You're thinking of accidents or death. But what about marriage or jobs or education or divorce? Those usually require an active choice (or many of them).

That's a debated topic. See the recent book by Stanford neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will."

It's true, any system is 100% deterministic when you get to a low enough level, but we can't observe it and saying so is rather pointless.

Re: Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives

#40

Post by pinkmuffinere »

reality_inspctr wrote: post #5

I tried to build a startup based on a similar idea, but the traction was not good. The squarespace website is still up https://sundialcalendar.com/ It’s stunning how much of our lives are predictable. We are free will surfers on waves of determinism.

The website is still up, but I take it the startup is fully shuttered? If not, I'd love to try it. Clicking on the Signup/login button I see a message saying:

This Deployment has been disabled.

Your connection is working correctly.

Vercel is working correctly.

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