Am I the Same Person as I Was Yesterday?

“Mathematical models, by their nature, are based on the past, and on the assumption that patterns will repeat.”

[Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’neil]

We always promise ourselves, ‘I will be not the same person as I was yesterday’. But, can we do that? It is really hard to change our daily routine and we repeat the same mistakes over and over. Hence, we are so predictable.

Data-driven models are finding patterns from past (or nearly present) to predict future behaviors under the belief that history always repeats itself. Hence, the data-driven model uses our repeated patterns to enhance its prediction accuracy. So, we need a break from routines and to be an outlier so that the model cannot predict our future.