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The joyless world of data-driven startups

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Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#71

Post by evanwarfel »

There is one, and only one reason to be 'data driven'. Or to test one's hypotheses, for that matter. And that is to make sure you aren't fooling yourself; that you haven't fallen prey to the myriad cognitive biases; to prevent your preconceived notions from clouding your judgement of reality, aka what is actually going on.

While data always provides more information, the less strong your prior beliefs, the less informative your experiment will be -- If you believe something and it turns out to be majorly false, you get a nice shift in expectations. If you believe in something and it turns out to be very true, you gain lots of information in terms of quantifying the effect you are looking into.

If you are Google, looking to eck out every last 1/1000th of a penny on ads, yeah, maybe a/b testing the shade of blue of a button can be justified.

The more other companies are "Data Driven" [like the somewhat unfortunate examples the author chose], as opposed to "Hypothesis Driven", the more there is room for somebody else to fry bigger fish.

In other words, it's not the "data's" fault, it is ours.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#72

Post by davak »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #18

There is a looming disaster of a similar nature coming in healthcare too. Data shouldn't be used to set goals it should be used to achieve them. It may also tell you when it is not currently possible to achieve your goal. That doesn't mean you should throw up your hands and set goals that the data seems to indicate are achievable because (among other things) that is tantamount to believing we can actually predict the…

I would love to buy you a beer sometime and discuss that with you. If you have any sources for that epiphany... please let me know.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#73

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

baddox wrote: post #32
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true in the sense that what makes technology and culture interesting is invention, not endless recycling. You're pretty much suggesting that using strong feedback to force culture to stay within a tiny area of the total possible cultural phase space is just as interesting as allowing chaotic exploration of the entire space. It's not just an argument against creativity, it's an argument against invention in gener…

> It's true in the sense that what makes technology and culture interesting is invention, not endless recycling. That may very well be what makes technology and culture interesting to you. It's not necessarily what makes technology and culture interesting to everyone, or even a large portion of people. > You're pretty much suggesting that using strong feedback to force culture to stay within a tiny area of the total…

>That may very well be what makes technology and culture interesting to you.

Do you really prefer static, stagnating cultures to dynamic and inventive ones?

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#74

Post by somberi »

greggman wrote: post #57
peterburkimsher wrote: post #46

I'm not afraid of computers acting like people (AI). I'm very worried about people acting like computers. Every circuit, every program is based on a principle: comparators (analogue) = NAND (digital) = if statements (software). Machines choose their answer by taking a huge amount of information, and sorting it. By design, this leads to some monstrous conclusions. For example, eugenics might be logically efficient, bu…

> She makes all her decisions based on the heart, rather than the mind Maybe I reading the wrong thing into that. I make decisions with my heart and mind. Heart = I care about my kids and want them to be healthy Mind = To care for them I vaccinate them and don't use homeopathy Maybe I'm misinterpreting this but my general experience is someone who "makes all decisions based on the heart, rather than the mind" general…

@Greggman - I like your Heart/Mind example more approachable variant of Bertrand Russell's "The way forward for humanity is compassion guided by knowledge".

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#75

Post by coldtea »

icebraining wrote: post #62
coldtea wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These first three examples are awful examples. A ton of people love all of those things. So what? A ton of people loved smoking cigarettes, segregation, creationism, and tons of other BS stuff too. The idea about culture is also making value judgements, not just bending over to whatever "people like" as if mere enjoyment is the be all end all of arguments. Especially since what people "like" is not the objective, "…

The idea about culture is also making value judgements, not just bending over to whatever "people like" as if mere enjoyment is the be all end all of arguments. But isn't that what the article is about? The song it points as the thing to strive for is Bohemian Rapsody (and not, say, Enter, Evening ) exactly because people loved it.

While not Enter, Evening, Bohemian Rapsody has a musical sofistication quite above the examples of statistics and crowd-research driven stuff mentioned above.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#76

Post by collyw »

noelwelsh wrote: post #4

I think the article goes a bit too far against data. Hits like Bohemian Rhapsody are by their nature freak events and not easily reproducible. Nobody is suggesting (I hope) that you can achieve that kind of success without a healthy dose of luck. However I agree that for early stage startups data driven decision making can be difficult. My experience is its expensive and you often have very little data. The other iss…

Reading the article it reminded me of when the Morotola Razr came out. Before that all the data driven studies had been done, and the ideal handset size and shape had been determined. The Razr went against all the rules (it was far too wide according to these studies) and was a huge success at the time.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#77

Post by collyw »

baddox wrote: post #15
frandroid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Data-driven movies gave us 25 Hollywood sequels planned for this year You mean, data-driven movie investment. Movie producers don't want the same thing as cinephiles.

True, and given the tiny portion of people who are cinephiles, that seems reasonable.

I am by no means a cinephile, but the Hollywood churn is certainly not what I want to see in movies.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#78

Post by collyw »

soup10 wrote: post #49
peterburkimsher wrote: post #46

I'm not afraid of computers acting like people (AI). I'm very worried about people acting like computers. Every circuit, every program is based on a principle: comparators (analogue) = NAND (digital) = if statements (software). Machines choose their answer by taking a huge amount of information, and sorting it. By design, this leads to some monstrous conclusions. For example, eugenics might be logically efficient, bu…

This oversimplifies AI. The human brain is based on simple principles as well. The mechanisms of cells and neurons and neurotransmitters are not hard to understand in isolation. There is no principle difference between an AI that functions on top of millions of silicon circuits and the human brain which functions on top of millions of biological circuits. While machines are presently lacking in certain capabilities s…

You seem to be oversimplifying intelligence, assuming that it comes directly from neuronal activity. I am not saying its not the case, but I would say that its quite a big assumption given our current level of understanding.

With your example of artificial intelligence, the software running on top of silicon circuits still comes from human intelligence. Where does that ultimately come from?

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