Posted on 11/22/2016 1:45:30 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Donald Trump.
It's fair to say pollsters, political commentators and experts on both sides of the Atlantic didn't believe they would ever see that. And neither did I.
If you listened to us all on the airwaves it was clear that most believed common sense would prevail and prevent someone so polarising and unpredictable being elected to the most powerful office in the world.
But there was one expert in a TV studio that, if it had had a voice, would have been saying something like "I told you so".
EagleAi was designed and built by Havas for ITV News. A learning artificial intelligence tool, it was programmed to interpret and understand on a scale never seen before on British television.
Our team at Havas Cognitive that created EagleAi fed it with billions of data points dating back to the moment Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were selected at their respective party conventions. And then we spent weeks checking and double checking the data sets and the algorithms, because we just couldn't believe our eyes. You see, EagleAi kept predicting a Trump victory.
It was taught to understand sentiment, tone, emotion and even intention and use all of that to predict voter behaviour. In fact, it got so good at it, it could spot patterns and connections just like a human brain.
I spent election night chaperoning EagleAi on ITV News, and I was in awe of its ability from the start. This cognitive technology allows us to understand like a human being but operate at a volume and speed that is not humanly possible. It's like harnessing the power of 2,000 data researchers at the touch of a button.
After feeding on the content of countless speeches, three presidential debates, 15 million articles, hundreds of political feeds, tweets, social posts and millions more sources, this extraordinary piece of AI – the first of its kind to appear live on television – was telling its programmers that it believed Donald Trump in the White House was not just a possibility, but a likely outcome of this presidential election.
ITV News anchor Tom Bradby was incredulous when EagleAi produced the insight that Donald Trump's personality index score was in fact more "agreeable" than Hillary Clinton's.
EagleAi used personality indexing to anaylse elements of the candidates' character and their messages, from their debate performances, to their social channels and the content of their speeches.
The index suggests that a person is "agreeable" when they are perceived as warm and considerate. So did EagleAi spot something that the media didn't? That Trump's repeated use of the messages that he "loves his country" and wants to "make it great again" gave voters that exact impression – of someone who understood them and cared about them? No matter his repeated and increasingly bitter attacks on his opponents and minorities of all kinds.
What's more, EagleAi spotted something about Hillary Clinton too – that she may be prepared, diligent and on top of the detail, but when it came to warmth and likability it all felt too rehearsed and cold for the former Secretary of State to win over voters. And so her messages just didn't cut through like they should have done. Even though her credentials on civic issues like gender equality, abortion rights and civil liberties should stack up, she just wasn't offering the warmth that voters craved.
When EagleAi was asked to explore the election issues it had uncovered, it could offer so much more than polling data. In this election it was clear to us and the AI that volume was the number one priority. Say it often enough and people will hear.
And that's where Trump may have just won this election: the power of saying it over and over again, talking directly to the voters on social media, and then never letting up. Did the Clinton camp simply fail to respond to the reality of social media as the new powerhouse in politics, in brands and in business?
And that is where we believe cognitive is only at the beginning of its evolution. It is essential to the future of our industry and the understanding of brand penetration and ultimately buying behaviour.
If EagleAi could see what so many human beings couldn't when it came to the ragingly unpredictable nature of voting in an historic election, what might it be able to do for businesses all over the world just beginning to understand its power?
As EagleAi delivered the fatal blow to the Clinton campaign – showing a map of the US and support by state that had whole swathes of America bedecked in red, it displayed a laser-like clarity that the human beings hadn't.
And maybe that's the beauty of AI. It doesn't have a vested interest. EagleAi had no in-built bias on election night. When you focus on the zeros and ones that are the building blocks of code, there's no room for preconception or prejudice. Just the facts. On an awe-inspiring scale.
The big “bit” of information that went into my processing center was the last two nights of late-night campaign stops with 15,000 people at each stop.
I can’t say that I was surprised when Trump won. Although it wouldn’t have surprised me if Clinton won either. My family was getting all excited when Florida results were coming in, Ohio, etc.
“Well - let’s pray - but we don’t know where those numbers are from, and she might pull it off, so keep praying!”
“...what might it be able to do for businesses all over the world just beginning to understand its power?”
Wall Street is already trading like this. I have read where entire buildings on the west side of Manhattan are filled with computers and a few technicians and make automatic trades.
On the West Side so they get their information a few tenths of a milli-second sooner from the fiber-optic network before Wall Street does.
That is because you live in a itty-bitty, teinny-wienne echo-chamber.
And also because you think that the number one quality Americans want is a leader is "commitment to gender equality" or in other words, commitment to putting crazy people in little kids bathrooms.
Your machine, apparently not being crazy, correctly read that this was not as much an issue as say, being murdered by illegal aliens while out taking a walk with your dad.
The machine is probably very nice but not all that and a bag of chips.
You, on the other hand, are just bone deep ignorant.
They didn’t help the election prediction markets. The big money was on Hillary
That there is funny, I don't care who you are!
So a huge dark blob of criminal corruption looked like a safer bet to them?
geez.. how much bias can you pack into one article?
She spends the entire article talking about how she can’t believe the computer was right when people SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO PICK THAT STUPID TRUMP!!!!
Clearly she wasn’t the one who programmed it.
All that work,time inputting all that information when we all knew Hillary sucks and is a pathological liar.
We also knew that the people who control the dissemination of all information to the public were in the bag for her and were also cooking the books.
So what did this Nintendo tell us what we already knew?
It’s from Britain.
All that work,time inputting all that information when we all knew Hillary sucks and is a pathological liar.
We also knew that the people who control the dissemination of all information to the public were in the bag for her and were also cooking the books.
So what did this Nintendo tell us that we didn’t already know?
Three othrrs, off the top of my head, who got it right: 1, Bill Mitchell, who crunched the numbers and never wavered, 2, Halloween masks, which always correctly predict the winner (Trump easily and decisively outsold Hillary), and 3, some monkey in China who’s good with predictions.
others
The Author is clueless. His personal bias and false assumptions about reality shine out in nearly every sentence.
His should be Hers.
But common sense *did* prevail. The polarizing and unpredictable (and, I should add, temperamental) candidate was shoved into the dustbin of history.
Even though her credentials on civic issues like gender equality, abortion rights and civil liberties should stack up, she just wasn't offering the warmth that voters craved.
The leftist narrative on these issues does not contain a lot of warmth. Feminism is about hating men and demanding to be treated as superior while acting like a petulant and not very bright child; most women do not, in fact, relish the thought of dismembering their babies; and special rights for select groups strikes decent people as ultimately unfair.
And the author of this piece should really take a long, critical look at herself. If the AI was programmed to be unbiased and it came to this conclusion, perhaps she should ask herself why?
If we really thought about it, we could come up with many who got it right. Scott Adams comes to mind. There’s also a certain professor, whose name I don’t recall, with a decaes-long record of getting it right. He predicted Trump. I remember reading about some bellwether county with something like a 98% record of accuracy going back decades. The voters there predicted Trump.
No time to list them all, but there were plenty.
here’s also a certain professor,
Professor Norpoth is who I am thinking of.
Irrational Human vs machine from the article:
- experts on both sides of the Atlantic didn’t believe...
So people who studied the data believed Trump would win are by definition not experts. Only people who agree with the author are experts.
- common sense would prevail.
The word common in common sense implies non-experts. So common sense did prevail and the author is in denial.
- someone so polarising...
When opposite charges of magnets repel each other can the polarising be blamed on just one of the charges? The same with human society. How is one side more polarising than the other when they are both polarized?
- and unpredictable...
Those on the side of the author claim Trump is very predictable... he is predictably insulting, predictably politically incorrect. So is calling him unpredictable some kind of dialectical literary device?
- one expert in TV studio, if it had had a voice...
So the author admits there was no diversity in the studio. But isn’t diversity supposed to bring the right answers?
- we just couldn’t believe our eyes...
You saw the same raw evidence that computer saw. You didn’t believe your eyes when you saw the raw evidence. So you didn’t believe your eyes when you saw the computer conclusions. Seems like you wouldn’t need the computer if you just believed the raw evidence.
- spot patterns and connections just like a human brain...
But apparently not the human brains of this author and her clique.
- incredulous that Trump’s personality score was more “agreeable” than Clinton’s...
I’m incredulous that he was incredulous. Wasn’t this rather obvious?
- “loves his country” “make it great again”...someone who understood and cared about them
So the author thought hate of country and choosing to be a loser were somehow more empathetic?
- she may be prepared, diligent and on top of the detail...
A person who repeatedly swears under oath that she doesn’t remember and didn’t know is prepared? diligent? on top of detail?
- her credentials on civic issues like gender equality, abortion rights and civil liberties...
Her credentials are her success in Libya and Syria. And, by the way, she is demonstrably against civil liberties.
- Say it often enough and people will hear....
The media said Hillary’s message far more often than Trump said his message. So you can fool some of the people some of the time. But the media can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
- Did the Clinton camp simply fail to respond to the reality of social media...
Social media has followers, not broadcasters. People followed Trump and did not follow Clinton because they chose to. This is unlike the top-down approach the Clinton media is used to.
- cognitive is only at the beginning of its evolution...
I work in IT. I tell my manager that my analysis concludes A is better than B. I am ignored. I tell my manager the $50k tool says A is better than B. The manager will listen. I tell my manager the $500k tool says A is better than B. The manager believes it. We are creating a gullible society that believes if the computer says it, it must be right.
- If EagleAi could see what so many human beings couldn’t...
The computer didn’t have any special data. The humans had the same data right in front of their eyes but refused to see it because it did not agree with their bias.
- As EagleAi delivered the fatal blow to the Clinton campaign...
Uh~! The voters did that, not the computer. The author just cannot admit to herself that the voters did this.
- it displayed a laser-like clarity that the human beings hadn’t...
Some people ridicule faith in God or the Bible. But this elevating of the computer to God is ridiculous and scary.
- AI. It doesn’t have a vested interest...
The problem is not a vested interest. The problem is not being honest about that vested interest. Stock traders has a vested interest. When they are honest about their vested interest they do quite well. When they are dis-honest and delude themselves and don’t believe the facts they don’t do so well. The same is true of politics.
- building blocks of code, there’s no room for preconception or prejudice....
There’s a sucker born every minute. Computers can be programmed, and often are, to be just as biased as humans. This lack of understanding of technology is scary.
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