The Infinite Number of Monkeys Weekly COVID Update
As reported in the Minneapolis Journal in 1904, seventh grader Gertie Bleecher looked into the future and saw an electric “sweeper running up and down the hall, taking up the dust.”
The Roomba!
Gertie foresaw the Roomba in 1904! She was just a bit early. She was predicting 1919, not 2019.
This may be a case of the famous dictum infinitus numerus simiae – an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters. But in our novel world, most of us are trying to predict what the next months and years will bring. Most predictions come from pundits and experts whose predictions are very frequently inaccurate in terms of what will happen, when it will happen or both. It just feels like they are guessing.
An article in the Atlantic last June provides some perspective, focusing on the research of psychologist and political scientist Philip E. Tetlock. In an experiment that consisted of 82,361 predictions over 20 years, Tetlock compared the predictive ability of deep experts and broad thinking non-experts.
The integrative thinkers outperformed subject matter experts in pretty much every way, but especially on long-term predictions. The integrators were not vested in a single discipline. They took from every argument, every point of view and integrated apparently contradictory worldviews.
Inspired by Ancient Greek poet Archilochus who wrote "a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one great thing,” Tetlock bestowed these memorable nicknames on the experts he’d observed.
Hedgehogs are deeply and tightly focused. Some have spent their career studying one problem. They fashion elegant theories of how the world works and then filter the world through the single lens of their specialty. Foxes, meanwhile, “draw from an eclectic array of traditions, and accept ambiguity and contradiction.” Where hedgehogs represent narrowness, foxes embody breadth.
This has important implications for how we run our businesses. Planning is essential. Obviously, we need hedgehogs to look into the future. Only they understand their area of expertise well enough. But we need to put the foxes on those same planning teams– thinkers who can connect and integrate wide swaths of information. A good team has a mix of both. You might want to put a fox in charge of the hedgehog house no matter what their position in the firm. Even the most junior integrative thinker may bring absolutely essential perspective to the planning party.
If you are interested, Time Magazine put out a very relevant article on COVID-19 and superforecasting two weeks ago. If you fancy becoming more foxy yourself, The Rotman School of Business at UofT has some excellent integrative thinking tools.
Perhaps your next in-house training could spend some time building foxy thinking skills – ours will.
The stock market is an area of prediction where we play close attention. We’re very familiar with the bull market (good) and the bear market (not as good for most people). COVID events have brought a new market to our attention, the kangaroo:
Seeing different animals in stock market patterns is not unlike stargazing. Ancient shepherds (one can only imagine drunk on fermented goat milk) saw constellations amongst the infinite number of stars above. Stock market analysts are similar – particularly those that deal in gold. They see the vomiting camel:
Another frequent area of prediction is the date of the arrival of the Singularity – the point when artificial intelligence exceeds the processing power and capacity of human intelligence. According to some, Singularity also implies machine consciousness. As you would now expect, estimates by AI experts vary widely:
In case you’re banking on the singularity never arriving, consider this. The cost of the quantum computer that Google, IBM, and various governments build is around $10 billion. But French engineer Yann Allain has built a quantum computer in his garage with a 3-D printer and plans he found on the internet for about $45,000. Not only is the Singularity coming, but your neighbour’s teenage children will probably bring it to life.
You might seriously want to consider retiring before the Singularity arrives. But how do you predict when that should be? Many people have a retire-by date. It can be calculated a number of ways
You've reached full retirement age
You're debt-free
You've created a retirement budget
You're no longer supporting your kids or parents
Your kids are ready to support you
The number of people you don’t understand at work exceeds the number of people you genuinely like
You’ve run out of dress compression socks
Your spouse is prepared to have you around all the time
While you wait, being a hedgehog or a fox doesn’t describe everyone in your world. There is another important type, the flying squirrel – the charismatic social connector who leaps from person to person building friendships and relationships. Who doesn’t love a flying squirrel?