Bayesian Probabilities in Machine Learning
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/can-a-machine-learn-to-write-for-the-new-yorker Bayes’ Rule can be seen as a model for decision-making under uncertainty. A concept that predicts the general shape that a cascade will form with wide applications to social networks, statistics, probability, and more. This sequential nature of decision-making is what enables the highly-accurate suggestions made by Smart Compose, a feature that Google introduced […]
Theranos and Incorrect Cascades
https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-life-story-bio-2018-4#both-holmes-and-balwani-could-face-up-to-20-years-in-prison-and-a-250000-fine-plus-restitution-for-each-charge-the-government-has-said-43 It takes very little information to start a cascade. Sometimes, the cascade even goes in the opposite direction to the actual state of the world. The rise of Theranos, a health technology company which no longer exists, can be viewed as an incorrect cascade. It is possible, even likely, that Elizabeth Holmes, the founder […]
FedEx: Allowing the Rich to Get Richer
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-its-tax-bill-to-0.html In the spirit of the rich-get-richer principle, I only thought it was fitting to share the story of FedEx and Trump’s corporate tax cuts (as brought to my attention from today’s The Daily podcast episode). The rich-get-richer principle is essentially that the probability of a good or an idea’s increase in popularity is directly […]
Movie Trailer Views on YouTube and Box Office Revenue
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-predictive-are-youtube-trailer-views-box-office-openings-1251422 This article investigates the correlation between the number of views a movie trailer gets on YouTube before it opens in theaters and the opening weekend box office revenue for the movie. Since 2017, data has been collected for 421 movies, resulting in a correlation of 0.86 between trailer views and opening weekend revenue. This […]
Tipping Points and Diffusion in Networks
https://www.economist.com/news/2009/04/20/tipping-point https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-016-0074-7 The articles above are about “tipping points” in the world. However, these tipping points discussed are not exactly the same tipping points that we discussed in class about firms pricing their products and people’s expectations of its popularity. Instead, the articles focus on tipping points as they exist in nature and […]
A Game of Guesses
https://markets.predictwise.com/entertainment/game-of-thrones https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/us/game-of-thrones-predictions-betting.html When the final season of Game of Thrones aired, there was a very large prediction market for various show events (ie. would Tyrion have a drink in the first episode). But one prediction market boomed the largest: who would we see sitting on the Iron Throne at the end of the series? […]
The Spread of Misinformation through Social Media
https://www.wsj.com/articles/users-adopt-new-tactics-to-spread-misleading-information-online-11571958180 This article from the Wall Street Journal discusses a problem the world is facing with the spread of misinformation (fake news). Some of the most common reasons why individuals choose to spread false information is to gain more support behind a cause (political campaign) or to generate profit by promoting a website or […]
Instagram and the Information Cascade
https://www.cnet.com/news/instagram-is-hiding-likes-you-may-be-happier-in-the-end/ This article explains that Instagram, a popular social media site, will be getting rid of the like counts on people’s posts. The article explains that the site is doing this as a way to improve its users mental health. Many people fixate on how many likes they get, and why they aren’t getting […]
Teens, the Internet, and Videos Gone Viral
What Do Teens Learn Online Today? That Identity Is a Work in Progress https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/13/magazine/internet-teens.html This article follows a girl named Antonio. She would record and post YouTube videos of her talking about her day. Essentially, it was an online journal. And in one of her videos she just comments on random things. Says “I’m dying” […]
Facebook SansNet Viral Information Cascade Detection
https://research.fb.com/publications/detecting-large-reshare-cascades-in-social-networks/ (download the paper at that link) While learning about information cascades in class, I was interested in learning about the applications and examples of information cascades in social media. As a moderate consumer of various social media platforms, I could imagine how information cascades have a large effect on the type of content that […]
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