People share ideas because they are either interesting or true, and Sam Atis argues that it’s unlikely for an idea to be both. He cites the idea that COVID-19 vaccination rates in Ohio saw a significant increase thanks to the state’s vaccine lotteries. The reasoning was that anti-vaxxers tend to overestimate the probability of highly unlikely events (like winning lotteries) happening. But interesting as this idea was, the research said otherwise; a paper revealed that Ohio didn’t see increased numbers of COVID-19 vaccinations due to the vaccine lotteries. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here
Merv
August 15, 2022
