Super Crunchers by Ian Ayers
Ian Ayres‘ Super Crunchers is a fascinating look at statistics and large-scale number crunching. Casinos and mobile phone companies are two examples of industries that increasingly rely on data collection and the ability to predict consumer behaviour. To their benefit, of course.
Ayres is a lawyer and econometrician. He is heavily involved in regression analysis and data collection – to use data to predict and plan for future events. In Super Crunchers, he provides up-to-date examples of supercrunching in action. Evidence-based medicine provides a good example of how the authority and knowledge of doctors is slowly being supplanted by patients’ ability to research their own ailments. Intuition, training and experience can easily and successfully be replaced by introducing data analysis techniques. Regression analysis on data quantities can be used for prediction, hypothesis testing and modeling of relationships. Most interesting is Ayres discussion of how Hollywood is starting to produce movies: using number crunching, Hollywood producers are able to determine in advance which movies will perform well at the box office. Most notably, such movies need not star prominent actors or be directed by a star director. Epagogix is one company providing hard data that overrides the artistic process of producing entertainment.
Of course, Google features prominently in the book. Google‘s serving of advertisements and its ability to predict what search results to return for each individual user are a very good example of super crunching in everyday computer use. Ayres indicates that he used super crunching techniques to determine the best title for his book. His list of online prediction tools provides a great diversion and food for thought.
This is a great read. Like The Tiger That Isn’t, a lot can be gained from the content. We are all under scrutiny in the modern age as data collection becomes a constant fact of life. Not only can Visa predict how long a marriage will last by analyzing purchases histories, but excellent wine vintages can be predicted years before the grapes that will produce them have reached maturity. Ayres has put together a real page turner in a format accessible to anyone.
The audio book is narrated by Michael Kramer and will provide almost 8 hours of entertainment. After the very lengthy Green Mars, it took me some time to get used to Kramer. As with all the other audio books I’ve listened to so far, he does a great job. I am still amazed that someone can sit down and read aloud with intense concentration for more than 8 hours!
