Regular readers of the FT might assume the world is becoming more unpredictable. Wars erupt, pandemics spread, markets gyrate, technology accelerates and politics fragments to an alarming degree. History appears to be on fast forward and we are all giddy with motion sickness. News is booming even if, sadly, the traditional news industry is not.
But in some areas, at least, the opposite proposition may be true: the world is becoming more predictable, no matter how counterintuitive that may seem. The emergence of bigger and better data sets and the use of powerful AI models to spot previously undetectable patterns is in some cases demonstrably improving our predictive capabilities. Take short-term weather forecasting, for example. In spite of the chaotic effects of climate change, the best AI-enabled seven-day weather forecasts now match the quality of three-day forecasts made in 1980 thanks to better sensors, more data and vast computing power.
Might the same be true for predicting human-generated political and economic squalls?