In history we call this determinism. The more you know about a historic choice and the complex mechanisms around it, the more it makes perfect sense while at th

In history we call this determinism. The more you know about a historic choice and the complex mechanisms around it, the more it makes perfect sense while at the same time leaving you absolutely clueless about the why. Christianity being chosen by the Roman Empire is the typical example. To most people the choice makes perfect sense, because we look back at what it brought with it. But when you put yourself in the heads of the decision makers and look at all the options they had, well, it makes no sense at all. A lot of machine learning tells us trends, but it tells us nothing about the why, and I completely agree with the article about how useless that data is. I mean, it’s probably great at harmless things, but when my elaborate online profile still can’t figure out why I happen to read a cultural, artsy but somewhat conservative news paper, despite the fact that my data shows the algorithm that I really really shouldn’t be doing that, well, then we simply can’t use ML for any form of decision making or even as an advisor. At least not in the public sector.