Super Crunchers

Ian Ayres thought "The End of Intuition" would be a great name for his new book -- until he ran the numbers and saw that more people would buy a book called "Super Crunchers," reports The Economist (9/15/07). After all, this is a book about how "data and the computer power now available make it possible for automated processes to surpass human experts in fields as diverse as rating wines, writing film dialogue and choosing titles for books." Indeed, when Ian used Google AdWords to test which title attracted more clicks, "Super Crunchers" won by 63 percent.

Ian, a Yale University professor of law and management, sees automated decision-making as posing a threat to a range of job professions. For example, bank-loan officers, who used to be "well-paid and responsible" have been reduced to call-center operatives, "paid peanuts to parrot the words a computer prompts." Doctors must also now "face up to the fact that computers can diagnose illnesses better than they can." He sees the death of intuition and expertise as threats even when it comes to his own profession: "When teaching small children to read, for example, tightly scripted lessons, their exact content and timing honed by randomized trials, do best."

"Super Crunchers" does not, however, "touch on what Nicholas Nassim Taleb calls 'Black Swans': rare events that are unpredictable with or without crunching numbers." And David Leonhardt, in a New York Times review, takes Ian to task for faulty attribution of some of his sources. David also thinks Ian "is simply too optimistic about the impact data analysis is having," noting, for example, that "evidence-based medical treatment ... is still far from the norm in this country." He concludes: "The Super Crunchers, aided by the explosion of inexpensive computing power, do their job remarkably well. The next step is finding some Super Persuaders."