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  • Get ready for the supercomputer that can predict the future

    From dailymail.co.uk

    A £900million scheme to produce a computer system which could predict the next financial crisis has been backed by leading scientists. The Living Earth Simulator Project (LES) aims to 'simulate everything' on the planet, using anything from tweets to government statistics to map out social trends and predict the next economic crisis. Using vasts reams of data fed into the internet, trends can be spotted by analysing information with 'the world's most powerful computers' The man behind the idea has billed it as a 'nervous system for the planet', while academics have backed it as a replacement for current outdated ... (full story)

  • Comment #1
  • Dec 5, 2011 5:53am Dec 5, 2011 5:53am
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XXX.94.62
hehe,another waste of money
  • Comment #2
  • Dec 5, 2011 5:54am Dec 5, 2011 5:54am
George Orwell would have loved this story. If you have read 1984....
  • Comment #3
  • Dec 5, 2011 5:55am Dec 5, 2011 5:55am
Useless effort. Only God can know the future. We can't predict what will happen even 1 second later.
  • Comment #4
  • Dec 5, 2011 5:58am Dec 5, 2011 5:58am
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XXX.70.81
yeah, I agree with you erdogac, waist of time and money. They don't know when the next hurricane will hit a big area like what happened in Louisiana, USA. when it was totally destroyed by Hurricane.
we only can predict, if we put water on fire, it will boil may be after 5 minutes yeah. That all we know about future!
  • Comment #5
  • Dec 5, 2011 5:58am Dec 5, 2011 5:58am
Have anybody got a clue why Gold was suddenly hit 5 dollars down a minute ago ?
  • Comment #6
  • Dec 5, 2011 6:09am Dec 5, 2011 6:09am
God knows
  • Comment #7
  • Dec 5, 2011 6:10am Dec 5, 2011 6:10am
Could it be able to predict the Forex Market moves...
  • Comment #8
  • Dec 5, 2011 6:12am Dec 5, 2011 6:12am
It will be a typical human psyche situation. They computer will say this will happen, and humans being idiots will try to prevent events and through their actions, end up causing the catastrophe they were trying to prevent. My motto: People as a race, are stupid.
  • Comment #9
  • Dec 5, 2011 6:17am Dec 5, 2011 6:17am
if this computer could predict what I will do today....then it can predict the future with 90% accuracy...such a computer should be able to read the minds of million of traders. It is possible, this computer could read what major central banks will do..but the rest of market, I give it 50-50...good job though..at least somebody is trying to predict the future...
There is always a price for promises you don't keep!
The future is here
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XXX.78.2
Well, this *will* be possible when mankind manages the quantum computer technology.

A quantum computer can consider all results of an equation at once and "know" the most likely result; while today's computers basically calculate sequentially and thus, the more complex the problem, the longer the calculation times.
It doesnt have to accurately predict the future it just has to get enough people to believe it can. Then it will be accurate, with some fine tuning of course. Will this be anything like those computer models that predict hurricanes??
Nobody can predict earthquakes for example. So why spend that much money to predict financial markets. It will be better to spend it to predict natural disasters.
indeed we don't live in a determinist system: recent discoveries Schrödinger's theories. so is a waste of money!!
I think the point is to make people believe that it can predict the future.. if a human says that a crisis is coming (Roubini) nobody will believe him but a super computer....We will never know because they could that it has changed the future by predicting it.
I love this quote: "The current economic crisis and eurozone meltdown was not foreseen by the financial models which most policy-makers use." DUH anyone with a brain realizes that too much debt and deficit spending will lead to a crisis. How absurd of a remark, this was easily seen and many knew it was coming. Just dont know the exact date. We also know that the current continuance of debt will lead to a future calamity. I dont need a computer to predict that one either. Stupid!!
computer can't predict future , but it's easy to bring prediction into reality especially financial crash . all it's need few big short sellers and few media channel.
Mohan
Quoting nanningbob
It doesnt have to accurately predict the future it just has to get enough people to believe it can. Then it will be accurate, with some fine tuning of course. Will this be anything like those computer models that predict hurricanes??
I was just thinking the same thing. PR not artificial intelligence is the "je ne sais quoi" ingredient.
Based on the confirmations over the weekend that somebody attacked Iran's Asfehan, i can predict that war is coming in the Middle East but can your computer predict how worse it will be, for how long will it last????????
Or even how much is an oil barrel on January 31st ???????????? or even can anyone pick the right answer and justify it :
a) 100-150$
b) 150-200$
c? 200-250$
If things don't change then they will stay the way the are. Who needs a super computer!
Don't wait for the wind, take to the oars.
Doesn't chaos theory rule against any firm predictions- apart form percentage probabilities around mathematical patterns ?
  •  Guest
  • | IP XXX.XX.156.109
anyone who trust models is insane. You can use them as indicators though so this computer might be useful to a trader...
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XX.33.146
They should use the funds to send batch by batches of politician to mental hospitals for detoxification program.
Scientists need money too!
Some are getting money from war, some from getting economy close to the abyss, those are trying to invent something so not the worst thing to do to make oneself a bit richer
  •  Guest
  • | IP XXX.XXX.26.141
money could be better used, same could be said for all the taxpayers funds used to prop up the markets now
Only God knows the future thats it.I think this is a new hollywood film waste of money and time.
i bet it can predict peoples knee jerk reactions to any thing obvious..LOL Now everybody knows what would be the knee jerk reactions for any news about a European bank going dow.... umm do we need a supercomputer for that.....?
Forget the computer costing Ģ900m. Heads or tails, on a coin toss, will prove just as effective.
yawn !
  •  Guest
  • | IP XXX.XXX.144.4
Quoting Dr. forex
Or even how much is an oil barrel on January 31st ???????????? or even can anyone pick the right answer and justify it : a) 100-150$ b) 150-200$ c? 200-250$
I would pick C. I have the feeling that if US go at war against Iran, Pakistan might attack too
i will do it for 100k..they gonna save a fortune hehe
I wonder who will have access to the predictions of this computer.
If you take the alphabet in multiple of six, where A=6, B=12, C=18, and so on. Then take the word "computer" and add it up, it comes out to 666. Same with the word "witchcraft." Hmmmmm.......
Time turns trend. - W.D. Gann
  •  Guest
  • | IP XXX.XXX.168.193
it sounds like the first step to the movie - TERMINATOR
The "Doc" looks well intentioned enough. But, you can bet the super-rich that are trying to consolidate the political realms and control the masses, will use it to test out their proposed manipulations,....to see if should they do "A", will they get their desired results "B".
Garbage IN Garbage OUT
  •  Guest
  • | IP XXX.XXX.209.2
I can see the future in my computer its the blue screen....
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XX.141.93
The really hard part will be programming it to make stupid decisions...Something only humans are currently capable of and arguably the hardest part to duplicate using artificial intelligence.
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XXX.99.163
Ancient greeks had gods that couldn't predict future, they just knew what would happed statistically. And look at their progress! Future cannot be predicted, sooner you let go this predictability illusion better you can trade.
  •  Guest
  • | IP XXX.XX.154.86
Sounds like science fiction to me.Computers work with whatever is fed into them.There`s the rub.Who or what will be doing the inputting and how frequently.As previously mentioned I consider it going on a costly fools errand.
You don't need a computer to spot the impending financial catastrophe, you just need to read the papers. Every now and then there is a really obvious clue. Let's see, I think the last was went something like "I have abolished boom and bust!"
Minesweeper target: 284
900 million for a computer! The problem is not solving the problem, its modeling it. I had a crash comming in 2007, I call turns in the eurusd often to the day, I use my brain a piece of paper and excel. This computer won't predict S*** because the boffins programming it, don't understand the model. What they hope to do is that silicon charlie will figure it out. Last time the boff's tried this they fed a computer with loads of data, they asked it what would stop a recession. The answer totally logical and correct was - hold Christmas every day. Yeah right I bet they were hanging their heads in shame.
  •  Guest
  • | IP XX.XXX.34.145
Most university students that are into computers already know how to make a super computer for pennies on the dollar,even hooking together a bunch of them they pick up cheap.
Does the display on this computer look like a large glass ball? That would be cool.
when the fuck will people learn that a true alpha doesnt exist in a free market?
People have been telling them the future for decades, trouble is they never listened, from tech bubble to sub prime to today, they were all warned well in advance. What makes you think they'll listen to this computer? Even retail traders have been mostly correct as to the economic events, especially in the last 5 years.
{Promotion Removed}
They will listen to a computer because they will not have pre-judged it to be an idiot. Then, when they don't like or otherwise disagree with the answer, they will blame the computer programmers!
Quoting Guest
Most university students that are into computers already know how to make a super computer for pennies on the dollar,even hooking together a bunch of them they pick up cheap.
Yeah but a really powerful computer would consist of something like 256 PCs each costing around $1k, and then you have to figure out a way of getting them all to simultaneously do something useful. It would be much cheaper to simply distribute a virus so that it became possible to harness 50% of the computers in the U.S.and then get those computers.....

wait, they're doing that already, right
Minesweeper target: 284
I suppose that is one reason why Jesus saves!
Quoting erdogac
Useless effort. Only God can know the future. We can't predict what will happen even 1 second later.
Don't wait for the wind, take to the oars.
  • Story Stats
  • Posted: Dec 5, 2011 5:42am
  • Submitted by:
     Newsstand
    Category: Entertainment News
    Comments: 49  /  Views: 5,718