预测

We hear a great deal about the wonders of "Big Data" which certainly has advanced our understanding of the world in dramatic ways. Retailers can track who bought what, and they bought it. Sociologists can sift through vast amounts of political, economic, and societal information searching for patterns. There is tremendous potential for this technology, but, as with Blue Force Tracker and the other tools at our disposal in Iraq, it is unlikely that it will enable effective long-term prediction of the type that we crave. Data-rich records can be wonderful for explaining how complex phenomena happened and how they might happen, but they can't tell us when and where they will happen.

虽然大数据和AI技术发展迅猛，但是在预测这件事情上的贡献却十分有限，比如美国驻伊拉克反恐部队积累了很多恐怖袭击的历史数据，但是很难根据历史数据预测出下一次恐袭发生的时间和地点。

再举个例子，如果大数据和AI技术能够帮我们准确地预测，那么股市估计就要大结局了，因为不会再有人亏钱了。预测难很大程度上是因为我们所处的世界是一个VUCA的世界，任何微小的因素都可能引起指数级的影响，就像蝴蝶效应描述的那样：

“一只南美洲亚马逊河流域热带雨林中的蝴蝶，偶尔扇动几下翅膀，可以在两周以后引起美国得克萨斯州的一场龙卷风。”