CIA ‘Siren Servers’ can predict social uprisings 3-5 days in advance

“much harder to convey confidence for the policymaker who may make an important decision from advanced analytics with deep learning algorithms.”

This is an unsolvable problem. From the policymaker's point of view saying "deep learning told me so" is exactly the same as saying "god told me so"

In another article covering this story, I found this interesting quote:

"What we’re trying to do within a unit of my directorate [for Digital Innovation] is ... leverage what is becoming the instrumentation of the globe," [Deputy Director for Digital Innovation Andrew] Hallman added.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/10/cia-says-it-can...

In my limited experience, I feel like the CIA has a lot of room for improvement. Reminds me of this-

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/21/world/director-admits-cia-...

There's the problem of guys like Michael Morrell, who have no operational experience but go on Charlie Rose and advocate murdering Russian and Syrian officials. Not that I disagree but why publicly talk about it? Morrell's an economist. The agency being run by political bureaucrats I suppose is inevitable but it's unfortunate.

However, my experience on the science and technology side is also lacking. There's some super smart people who seem to lack any directive of strategy. I sometimes think, is this guy really this ridiculous or is he levelling me?

I love the CIA and am biased in their favor, but I can't think of any personal experience that makes me have confidence in them. Perhaps they are good at operational missions, but they are run by bureaucrats and the science side has the lack of socially smart, well rounded individuals.

The mystique and aura of powerfulness is seductive but the reality of the world is, everyone is much stupider than you can imagine. It's a wonder the world works at all.

I was personally in Western Tunisia (on the Algerian border) as the Tunisian uprising, the first of the Arab Spring, began. I was there a month. The protests were in full swing for weeks in every village in the west before anything hit western media. No travel warnings or any of that backdated pretend bureaucracy. I very much doubt the CIA had much of an idea what was going on outside the capital. The only western presence I saw during the whole period was a German diplomat taking his friends to see some ruins further east, which I doubt he would have been doing if he knew there was serious unrest. Internet is barely utilized there - how are they going to gather intelligence? It really gives you food for thought. Stay off the wires (including finance), and it's very hard for them to see much of anything.