9 ms·

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

160 points by andrewke 10y ago

slim 10y ago
“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"
- qznc 10y ago
  "god told me so" worked very well for thousands of years.
  - heartsucker 10y ago
    It certainly worked, whether or not it worked "well" is up for debate.
    - samstave 10y ago
      defacto, no debate...
abhianet 10y ago
Cool. I wonder how they test this stuff.
- petra 10y ago
  Probably feed it with historical data and see if it can tell what has happened.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Backcasting is a fairly standard testing method, though you've got to be careful about overfitting. I need to RTFA, but this sounds like it might have relations to Peter Turchin's work on cliodynamics.
    - alexc05 10y ago
      RTFA won't do you much good. It's pretty light on detail. (IMO) It spends most of its time meandering about and trying to sound like some sort of really mind-blowing techno shaman. So much so, that I doubt the authenticity and accuracy of the information that presented. I felt like it read a little more like a paranoid fringe article. I mean "Siren" in this case is named for the seductive nature of the power of the servers (greek myth reference) as opposed to a "warning siren" sounding the alarm of unrest. It gets worse, rambling on about the danger (and inevitability) if/when this power falls into the hands of corporate america. Cliche
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Yeah, I actually dug two layers further in, and tried to see if there was any info on the conf site itself (there isn't) on the talk / system. Overally, pretty content free. Oh well. Jaron Lanier coined the term. He's not entirely dismissable, but also not exactly tightly tuned to the heartbeat of the intel community AFAIU.
      - eveningcoffee 10y ago
        Dangers coming from usage of systems like this by a private corporation is not a cliche. It is a real danger. If it has not clicked for you then advertising network is a behaviour control mechanism.
        witty_username 10y ago
        HN is a behaviour control mechanism. _Other people_ upvote articles and downvote anything they don't like. Therefore ensuring you are forced fed with only articles _they_ like. Your behavior is controlled by all these other people. /s
hackuser 10y ago
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-predict-social-unrest-early-3-5-days-out/132121/?oref=d-river http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/10/cia-says-it-can...
M_Grey 10y ago
Would you trust the CIA's predictions, and that they were accurate rather than self-serving?
nowherehere 10y ago
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-fell-short-in-predicting-the-soviet-collapse.html 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.
- DominikR 10y ago
  It's a cultural thing I believe. Some cultures have a different way of dealing with conflicts, and each one of those has its pros and cons. The US for example threatens adversaries before it acts. And sometimes it will not act even though she says so. (bluffing like in a poker game) The benefits as I see them is being somewhat more transparent. The Russians on the other hand will not threaten. They want to keep all their options hidden. But when they come out saying they will do something they very likely will and sometimes this can look like an extreme escalation coming out of nowhere.
- samstave 10y ago
  >"run by political bureaucrats I suppose is inevitable but it's unfortunate." So if it is unfortunate, what classification of people, in your opinion, should be running it? What a weird comment you have posted... You love the CIA? are you a sadist? I am serious about that question, as while I agree that all states need their intelligence services - the CIA has done some downright EVIL shit. And if you "love the CIA" and are unfamiliar with their history, then you're a fucking moron. Now, its not to say that the US needs to, in their own best interest, remain as a world super-power... and we shall -- but its to focus on the fact that we can do so in a better fashion. I take the words "I love the CIA" to mean that you're either a sadist, a child of an op, or young and stupid, and by stupid - I just mean not critically thinking about what you have said/what your understanding of the CIA has done/is. Again, The US will be the predominant power in the world for the foreseeable future, but have some humanity -- something the actions of the CIA fucking lack. And if you love the CIA so much, you'll realize that they own this country, and that is not necessarily a good thing, you sound naive.
je42 10y ago
"We have, in some instances, been able to improve our forecast to the point of being able to anticipate the development of social unrest and societal instability some I think as near as three to five days out" with that in mind, i would say that they still have a lot of false positives...
contingencies 10y ago
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.
- wslh 10y ago
  Probably they can detect uprising in Germany...
  - Create 10y ago
    most certainly. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/us-nsa-gerhard-schroeder-surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/us-nsa-gerhard...
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  Of course a social uprising in Tunisia is very unlikely to spread to the USA. Movements in the UK, Australia and Canada however... As for staying off the wires. Thanks to the network effect you need to have a large portion of your network do the same.
  - hk__2 10y ago
    How is a social uprising in Tunisia more likely to spread to the UK or Canada than the USA?
    - losteric 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Dowwie 10y ago
Every time I read about expensive programs like these I think of what else that money could have been spent on that would prevent the need for populations to rise up against their governments.
- gus_massa 10y ago
  It's the CIA, there is a high chance that they are spending more money to fuel the revolution.
  - pmorici 10y ago
    gotta have a way to measure your ROI.
  - analog31 10y ago
    Well, that's one way of knowing when uprisings will happen. Deming wrote that if you have a policy of rewarding people for fighting fires, you also need to watch who is setting those fires.
    - Intermernet 10y ago
      You can also get some good stats by lighting some random fires yourself and record who comes in to either put them out, or fan the flames.
    - maccard 10y ago
      The cobra effect is a great example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
  - gscott 10y ago
    The State Department especially are training foreign activists the CIA needs to look no further then there for 80% of where the unrest is fostered from.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  Not to put your statement down, but this probably cost a lot less than that.
Jamesbeam 10y ago
I can not predict social unrest 3-5 days before it happens but my google alert for "black man shot by police" can do the same reliably 24 hours before social unrest starts. Suck this CIA.
- icebraining 10y ago
  I think you'll find a lot of false positives, as unfortunately that alert will be sent more than once a week: http://www.killedbypolice.net/ http://www.killedbypolice.net/ (M/B means Male/Black)
  - samstave 10y ago
    Set an alert for "cop convicted of unlawful killing of suspect" <crickets>
    - tomjen3 10y ago
      >Tensing pulled over DuBose near campus for a missing license plate. His attorney said Tensing feared being dragged under the car as DuBose tried to drive away. The shooting was captured on video by Tensing’s body camera and depicts DuBose repeatedly being asked for his driver’s license. After DuBose refuses to produce it and get out of the car, a gunshot is heard. >Tensing, who was fired from the department, was released from jail after posting 10% of $1-million bond. The county prosecutor called the shooting a “senseless act.” Tensing is scheduled to face a jury starting Oct. 24. >Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck in January recommended criminal charges be brought against Officer Clifford Proctor, who fatally shot an unarmed black man in the back. >Proctor told investigators he saw Glenn’s hand on his partner’s holster. But an LAPD report that drew upon security footage from a nearby bar in Venice found Glenn’s hand was nowhere near the holster. >Michael Slager faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of murder in the shooting death of Scott, who was running away on foot from a traffic stop in North Charleston, S.C., in April 2015. Scott was unarmed. >The shooting was captured on cellphone video by a passerby. Slager fired eight times at Scott before he was killed, reigniting the debate over how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers. >Slager, 34, was fired by the North Charleston Police Department and stands trial in October. Previously held in solitary confinement, he has been free since January, when he was released on $500,000 bail and put under house arrest. Last fall, North Charleston approved a $6.5-million civil settlement with Scott’s family. >Peter Liang, a rookie New York City police officer, was convicted Feb. 11 of manslaughter in the death of Gurley. >Liang was patrolling a public housing high-rise with his gun drawn in 2014 when he fired and a bullet ricocheted off a wall, hitting Gurley. Liang said he had been holding his weapon safely when a sound jarred him and he accidentally fired. >In April, a judge reduced the conviction to negligent homicide and sentenced Liang to five years’ probation and 800 hours of community service. >Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of black teenager McDonald. Van Dyke was charged in November on the same day that the city, on the orders of a judge, released the explosive dash-cam video showing McDonald being shot 16 times. >On the night of the shooting, Van Dyke and his partner trailed McDonald for nearly half a mile, from a trucking yard where he was said to have been breaking into vehicles. The officers radioed for a Taser in order to apprehend McDonald, who they said was carrying a knife in the middle of the road. According to the video, the officers arrived 10 minutes after the first call and, within 21 seconds, Van Dyke had emptied his 16-round handgun. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-snap-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-s...
blackkettle 10y ago
Welcome to Psychohistory. Thanks Hari.
- Intermernet 10y ago
  No problem, it's just a 30,000 year dark age. We come out OK at the end of it!
- vivab0rg 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. This is no Minority Report. Thanks Isaac!
austinkurpuis 10y ago
He has some interesting points. I can't say I agree with his opinion of where the "real value" of a service comes from. No doubt a service would be nothing without it's users, but it would also be nothing without the blood sweat and tears of the developers who built it. In the end we're creating something that people want to use and giving people something like Instagram for free is all the reward they deserve. If you Instagram where to pay their users they'd go bankrupt. It's not a viable business plan. I also feel like he's missing the whole point of open source. No one ever said it would distribute wealth. Bryan Cantrill said it best: "You should open source your project because you never know when a magical little pony is gonna come flying by and shit out a fucking rainbow right in front of you.".
Fjolsvith 10y ago
Something like this will become really useful when Google and Amazon are recording everything in US homes.
canjobear 10y ago
What's the precision/recall?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
h4nkoslo 10y ago
Likely because they're detecting their own signals. It's pretty clear by now that for instance the "color revolutions" were instigated in a large part by the US government; social media manipulation was a prominent attack vector.
mocana 10y ago
I welcome the CIA's attempt at modernizing. Let's face it: their recent track record at predicting major social movements has been terrible. The Arab spring, Tianamen square. They found out like the rest of us: cable TV and Internet. Monitoring social networks would seem like a good approach. I am wary of this technology being pointed domestically. Supposedly the U.S. is not in the CIAs purview, but there is probably no legal impediment to "lending" it to the FBI, or Homeland Security or whatever.
ganwar 10y ago
The article mentions deep learning as being one of the technologies that is being utilized here. I find it difficult to put all the pieces together on the efficacy of the system and the technologies being used as Deep learning is one of the most un-explanatory technology. That in turn raises some questions over the effectiveness of a system that predicts social and financial unrest. How did you do that?
thomasthomas 10y ago
"In certain sectors such as finance, it can be self-detrimental as in the case of the financial meltdown in 2007-2008. When a predictive system becomes too efficient, it undermines the very foundation upon which it stands. If you’ve gathered enough wealth and your services are so efficient that their values skyrocket, but there’s no money left for anyone to afford them, then you’ve fallen victim to the seductive power of siren servers." what the fuck is this author talking about? this is so incoherent. CIA can predict black swan events now and the super computers can accumulate so much wealth that no one can afford it? what is this website? is this satire?
nkoren 10y ago
I don't see anything too alarming here. Predicting social uprisings 3-5 days in advance is easy, as long as you're happy with a few hundred false positives for every solid hit. Signal-boosting is only useful to the extent that it doesn't equally boost noise. Besides, I'm quite sure that this other initiative is producing far more actionable data, even if it's hardly breaking news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQcZO_WnsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQcZO_WnsI (2011)
whybroke 10y ago
Or you could just announce you have such a technology and thereby slightly inhibit the organization of uprisings via the Panopticon effect. All for the cost of sending a few emails. Of course the reason what I say is unlikely is because actually building the system, functional or not, would justify an ever expanding budget.
tednoob 10y ago
I am not certain, but I think Recorded Future does something similar, and according to Wikipedia they are backed by the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_Future
gaius 10y ago
A siren server is the biggest and best computer on a network. Whoever has the most powerful computer would be the most powerful person, whether they plan to be or not That makes no sense. It's not even wrong, it's a bunch of words strung together that don't mean anything.

160 points by andrewke 10y ago

slim 10y ago

“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"

qznc 10y ago
"god told me so" worked very well for thousands of years.
- heartsucker 10y ago
  It certainly worked, whether or not it worked "well" is up for debate.
  - samstave 10y ago
    defacto, no debate...

abhianet 10y ago

Cool. I wonder how they test this stuff.

petra 10y ago
Probably feed it with historical data and see if it can tell what has happened.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Backcasting is a fairly standard testing method, though you've got to be careful about overfitting. I need to RTFA, but this sounds like it might have relations to Peter Turchin's work on cliodynamics.
  - alexc05 10y ago
    RTFA won't do you much good. It's pretty light on detail. (IMO) It spends most of its time meandering about and trying to sound like some sort of really mind-blowing techno shaman. So much so, that I doubt the authenticity and accuracy of the information that presented. I felt like it read a little more like a paranoid fringe article. I mean "Siren" in this case is named for the seductive nature of the power of the servers (greek myth reference) as opposed to a "warning siren" sounding the alarm of unrest. It gets worse, rambling on about the danger (and inevitability) if/when this power falls into the hands of corporate america. Cliche
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Yeah, I actually dug two layers further in, and tried to see if there was any info on the conf site itself (there isn't) on the talk / system. Overally, pretty content free. Oh well. Jaron Lanier coined the term. He's not entirely dismissable, but also not exactly tightly tuned to the heartbeat of the intel community AFAIU.
    - eveningcoffee 10y ago
      Dangers coming from usage of systems like this by a private corporation is not a cliche. It is a real danger. If it has not clicked for you then advertising network is a behaviour control mechanism.
      - witty_username 10y ago
        HN is a behaviour control mechanism. _Other people_ upvote articles and downvote anything they don't like. Therefore ensuring you are forced fed with only articles _they_ like. Your behavior is controlled by all these other people. /s

hackuser 10y ago

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-predict-social-unrest-early-3-5-days-out/132121/?oref=d-river http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/10/cia-says-it-can...

M_Grey 10y ago

Would you trust the CIA's predictions, and that they were accurate rather than self-serving?

nowherehere 10y ago

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-fell-short-in-predicting-the-soviet-collapse.html 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.

DominikR 10y ago
It's a cultural thing I believe. Some cultures have a different way of dealing with conflicts, and each one of those has its pros and cons. The US for example threatens adversaries before it acts. And sometimes it will not act even though she says so. (bluffing like in a poker game) The benefits as I see them is being somewhat more transparent. The Russians on the other hand will not threaten. They want to keep all their options hidden. But when they come out saying they will do something they very likely will and sometimes this can look like an extreme escalation coming out of nowhere.
samstave 10y ago
>"run by political bureaucrats I suppose is inevitable but it's unfortunate." So if it is unfortunate, what classification of people, in your opinion, should be running it? What a weird comment you have posted... You love the CIA? are you a sadist? I am serious about that question, as while I agree that all states need their intelligence services - the CIA has done some downright EVIL shit. And if you "love the CIA" and are unfamiliar with their history, then you're a fucking moron. Now, its not to say that the US needs to, in their own best interest, remain as a world super-power... and we shall -- but its to focus on the fact that we can do so in a better fashion. I take the words "I love the CIA" to mean that you're either a sadist, a child of an op, or young and stupid, and by stupid - I just mean not critically thinking about what you have said/what your understanding of the CIA has done/is. Again, The US will be the predominant power in the world for the foreseeable future, but have some humanity -- something the actions of the CIA fucking lack. And if you love the CIA so much, you'll realize that they own this country, and that is not necessarily a good thing, you sound naive.

je42 10y ago

"We have, in some instances, been able to improve our forecast to the point of being able to anticipate the development of social unrest and societal instability some I think as near as three to five days out" with that in mind, i would say that they still have a lot of false positives...

contingencies 10y ago

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.

wslh 10y ago
Probably they can detect uprising in Germany...
- Create 10y ago
  most certainly. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/us-nsa-gerhard-schroeder-surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/us-nsa-gerhard...
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
Of course a social uprising in Tunisia is very unlikely to spread to the USA. Movements in the UK, Australia and Canada however... As for staying off the wires. Thanks to the network effect you need to have a large portion of your network do the same.
- hk__2 10y ago
  How is a social uprising in Tunisia more likely to spread to the UK or Canada than the USA?
  - losteric 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Dowwie 10y ago

Every time I read about expensive programs like these I think of what else that money could have been spent on that would prevent the need for populations to rise up against their governments.

gus_massa 10y ago
It's the CIA, there is a high chance that they are spending more money to fuel the revolution.
- pmorici 10y ago
  gotta have a way to measure your ROI.
- analog31 10y ago
  Well, that's one way of knowing when uprisings will happen. Deming wrote that if you have a policy of rewarding people for fighting fires, you also need to watch who is setting those fires.
  - Intermernet 10y ago
    You can also get some good stats by lighting some random fires yourself and record who comes in to either put them out, or fan the flames.
  - maccard 10y ago
    The cobra effect is a great example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
- gscott 10y ago
  The State Department especially are training foreign activists the CIA needs to look no further then there for 80% of where the unrest is fostered from.
microcolonel 10y ago
Not to put your statement down, but this probably cost a lot less than that.

Jamesbeam 10y ago

I can not predict social unrest 3-5 days before it happens but my google alert for "black man shot by police" can do the same reliably 24 hours before social unrest starts. Suck this CIA.

icebraining 10y ago
I think you'll find a lot of false positives, as unfortunately that alert will be sent more than once a week: http://www.killedbypolice.net/ http://www.killedbypolice.net/ (M/B means Male/Black)
- samstave 10y ago
  Set an alert for "cop convicted of unlawful killing of suspect" <crickets>
  - tomjen3 10y ago
    >Tensing pulled over DuBose near campus for a missing license plate. His attorney said Tensing feared being dragged under the car as DuBose tried to drive away. The shooting was captured on video by Tensing’s body camera and depicts DuBose repeatedly being asked for his driver’s license. After DuBose refuses to produce it and get out of the car, a gunshot is heard. >Tensing, who was fired from the department, was released from jail after posting 10% of $1-million bond. The county prosecutor called the shooting a “senseless act.” Tensing is scheduled to face a jury starting Oct. 24. >Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck in January recommended criminal charges be brought against Officer Clifford Proctor, who fatally shot an unarmed black man in the back. >Proctor told investigators he saw Glenn’s hand on his partner’s holster. But an LAPD report that drew upon security footage from a nearby bar in Venice found Glenn’s hand was nowhere near the holster. >Michael Slager faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of murder in the shooting death of Scott, who was running away on foot from a traffic stop in North Charleston, S.C., in April 2015. Scott was unarmed. >The shooting was captured on cellphone video by a passerby. Slager fired eight times at Scott before he was killed, reigniting the debate over how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers. >Slager, 34, was fired by the North Charleston Police Department and stands trial in October. Previously held in solitary confinement, he has been free since January, when he was released on $500,000 bail and put under house arrest. Last fall, North Charleston approved a $6.5-million civil settlement with Scott’s family. >Peter Liang, a rookie New York City police officer, was convicted Feb. 11 of manslaughter in the death of Gurley. >Liang was patrolling a public housing high-rise with his gun drawn in 2014 when he fired and a bullet ricocheted off a wall, hitting Gurley. Liang said he had been holding his weapon safely when a sound jarred him and he accidentally fired. >In April, a judge reduced the conviction to negligent homicide and sentenced Liang to five years’ probation and 800 hours of community service. >Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of black teenager McDonald. Van Dyke was charged in November on the same day that the city, on the orders of a judge, released the explosive dash-cam video showing McDonald being shot 16 times. >On the night of the shooting, Van Dyke and his partner trailed McDonald for nearly half a mile, from a trucking yard where he was said to have been breaking into vehicles. The officers radioed for a Taser in order to apprehend McDonald, who they said was carrying a knife in the middle of the road. According to the video, the officers arrived 10 minutes after the first call and, within 21 seconds, Van Dyke had emptied his 16-round handgun. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-snap-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-s...

blackkettle 10y ago

Welcome to Psychohistory. Thanks Hari.

Intermernet 10y ago
No problem, it's just a 30,000 year dark age. We come out OK at the end of it!
vivab0rg 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. This is no Minority Report. Thanks Isaac!

austinkurpuis 10y ago

He has some interesting points. I can't say I agree with his opinion of where the "real value" of a service comes from. No doubt a service would be nothing without it's users, but it would also be nothing without the blood sweat and tears of the developers who built it. In the end we're creating something that people want to use and giving people something like Instagram for free is all the reward they deserve. If you Instagram where to pay their users they'd go bankrupt. It's not a viable business plan. I also feel like he's missing the whole point of open source. No one ever said it would distribute wealth. Bryan Cantrill said it best: "You should open source your project because you never know when a magical little pony is gonna come flying by and shit out a fucking rainbow right in front of you.".

Fjolsvith 10y ago

Something like this will become really useful when Google and Amazon are recording everything in US homes.

canjobear 10y ago

What's the precision/recall?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

h4nkoslo 10y ago

Likely because they're detecting their own signals. It's pretty clear by now that for instance the "color revolutions" were instigated in a large part by the US government; social media manipulation was a prominent attack vector.

mocana 10y ago

I welcome the CIA's attempt at modernizing. Let's face it: their recent track record at predicting major social movements has been terrible. The Arab spring, Tianamen square. They found out like the rest of us: cable TV and Internet. Monitoring social networks would seem like a good approach. I am wary of this technology being pointed domestically. Supposedly the U.S. is not in the CIAs purview, but there is probably no legal impediment to "lending" it to the FBI, or Homeland Security or whatever.

ganwar 10y ago

The article mentions deep learning as being one of the technologies that is being utilized here. I find it difficult to put all the pieces together on the efficacy of the system and the technologies being used as Deep learning is one of the most un-explanatory technology. That in turn raises some questions over the effectiveness of a system that predicts social and financial unrest. How did you do that?

thomasthomas 10y ago

"In certain sectors such as finance, it can be self-detrimental as in the case of the financial meltdown in 2007-2008. When a predictive system becomes too efficient, it undermines the very foundation upon which it stands. If you’ve gathered enough wealth and your services are so efficient that their values skyrocket, but there’s no money left for anyone to afford them, then you’ve fallen victim to the seductive power of siren servers." what the fuck is this author talking about? this is so incoherent. CIA can predict black swan events now and the super computers can accumulate so much wealth that no one can afford it? what is this website? is this satire?

nkoren 10y ago

I don't see anything too alarming here. Predicting social uprisings 3-5 days in advance is easy, as long as you're happy with a few hundred false positives for every solid hit. Signal-boosting is only useful to the extent that it doesn't equally boost noise. Besides, I'm quite sure that this other initiative is producing far more actionable data, even if it's hardly breaking news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQcZO_WnsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQcZO_WnsI (2011)

whybroke 10y ago

Or you could just announce you have such a technology and thereby slightly inhibit the organization of uprisings via the Panopticon effect. All for the cost of sending a few emails. Of course the reason what I say is unlikely is because actually building the system, functional or not, would justify an ever expanding budget.

tednoob 10y ago

I am not certain, but I think Recorded Future does something similar, and according to Wikipedia they are backed by the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_Future

gaius 10y ago

A siren server is the biggest and best computer on a network. Whoever has the most powerful computer would be the most powerful person, whether they plan to be or not That makes no sense. It's not even wrong, it's a bunch of words strung together that don't mean anything.