Could AI predict the future? - Thomas Hofweber

128,298 views ・ 2024-05-21

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:07
You and your partner Alex have been in a strong, loving relationship for years,
0
7378
4713
00:12
and lately you're considering getting engaged.
1
12091
2461
00:14
Alex is enthusiastic about the idea, but you can’t get over the statistics.
2
14677
4838
00:19
You know a lot of marriages end in divorce, often not amicably.
3
19557
3670
00:23
And over 10% of couples in their first marriage get divorced
4
23269
3754
00:27
within the first five years.
5
27023
1877
00:29
If your marriage wouldn’t even last five years,
6
29692
2711
00:32
you feel like tying the knot would be a mistake.
7
32403
2378
00:34
But you live in the near future,
8
34989
2086
00:37
where a brand-new company just released an AI-based model
9
37075
3545
00:40
that can predict your likelihood of divorce.
10
40620
3211
00:43
The model is trained on data sets
11
43915
2127
00:46
containing individuals’ social media activity,
12
46042
2627
00:48
online search histories, spending habits, and history of marriage and divorce.
13
48669
4880
00:53
And using this information,
14
53591
1585
00:55
the AI can predict if a couple will divorce
15
55176
2669
00:57
within the first five years of marriage with 95% accuracy.
16
57845
4380
01:02
The only catch is the model doesn’t offer any reasons for its results—
17
62767
4212
01:06
it simply predicts that you will or won’t divorce without saying why.
18
66979
4713
01:12
So, should you decide whether or not to get married
19
72443
3087
01:15
based on this AI’s prediction?
20
75530
2043
01:18
Suppose the model predicts you and Alex
21
78825
2627
01:21
would divorce within five years of getting married.
22
81452
2920
01:24
At this point, you'd have three options.
23
84997
2253
01:27
You could get married anyway and hope the prediction is wrong.
24
87250
3003
01:30
You could break up now,
25
90294
1252
01:31
though there’s no way to know if ending your currently happy relationship
26
91546
3753
01:35
would cause more harm than letting the prediction run its course.
27
95299
3128
01:38
Or, you could stay together and remain unmarried,
28
98511
3378
01:41
on the off-chance marriage itself would be the problem.
29
101889
3212
01:45
Though without understanding the reasons for your predicted divorce,
30
105560
3753
01:49
you’d never know if those mystery issues would still emerge
31
109313
3671
01:52
to ruin your relationship.
32
112984
1585
01:55
The uncertainty undermining all these options
33
115194
3212
01:58
stems from a well known issue with AI around explainability and transparency.
34
118406
5589
02:04
This problem plagues tons of potentially useful predictive models,
35
124287
4087
02:08
such as those that could be used to predict which bank customers
36
128374
3420
02:11
are most likely to repay a loan,
37
131794
1960
02:13
or which prisoners are most likely to reoffend if granted parole.
38
133754
4171
02:18
Without knowing why AI systems reach their decisions,
39
138176
3503
02:21
many worry we can’t think critically about how to follow their advice.
40
141679
4296
02:26
But the transparency problem doesn’t just prevent us
41
146100
2711
02:28
from understanding these models,
42
148811
1794
02:30
it also impacts the user’s accountability.
43
150605
3086
02:34
For example, if the AI's prediction led you to break up with Alex,
44
154150
4046
02:38
what explanation could you reasonably offer them?
45
158196
2752
02:41
That you want to end your happy relationship
46
161115
2127
02:43
because some mysterious machine predicted its demise?
47
163242
3253
02:46
That hardly seems fair to Alex.
48
166579
2127
02:48
We don’t always owe people an explanation for our actions,
49
168831
3337
02:52
but when we do,
50
172168
1168
02:53
AI’s lack of transparency can create ethically challenging situations.
51
173336
4754
02:58
And accountability is just one of the tradeoffs we make
52
178299
2961
03:01
by outsourcing important decisions to AI.
53
181260
2962
03:04
If you’re comfortable deferring your agency to an AI model
54
184889
3545
03:08
it’s likely because you’re focused on the accuracy of the prediction.
55
188434
3837
03:12
In this mindset, it doesn’t really matter why you and Alex might break up—
56
192271
4380
03:16
simply that you likely will.
57
196651
1918
03:18
But if you prioritize authenticity over accuracy,
58
198736
3754
03:22
then you'll need to understand and appreciate the reasons
59
202490
3086
03:25
for your future divorce before ending things today.
60
205576
3170
03:28
Authentic decision making like this is essential for maintaining accountability,
61
208955
4879
03:33
and it might be your best chance to prove the prediction wrong.
62
213876
3921
03:37
On the other hand, it’s also possible the model
63
217880
2920
03:40
already accounted for your attempts to defy it,
64
220800
2836
03:43
and you’re just setting yourself up for failure.
65
223636
2502
03:46
95% accuracy is high, but it’s not perfect—
66
226931
3587
03:50
that figure means 1 in 20 couples will receive a false prediction.
67
230601
4672
03:55
And as more people use this service,
68
235356
2210
03:57
the likelihood increases that someone who was predicted to divorce
69
237566
3879
04:01
will do so just because the AI predicted they would.
70
241445
3420
04:05
If that happens to enough newlyweds,
71
245366
2294
04:07
the AI's success rate could be artificially maintained
72
247660
3712
04:11
or even increased by these self-fulfilling predictions.
73
251372
3670
04:15
Of course, no matter what the AI might tell you,
74
255167
2878
04:18
whether you even ask for its prediction is still up to you.
75
258045
3796
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7