Posted on Nov 4, 2015
Does the idea of the Army trying to predict who will become violent scare or reassure you?
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Apparently, the Army is attempting to use "big data" data-mining techniques in an attempt to identify who is most likely to become violent.
Is anybody here troubled about the potential adverse impact this could have on a soldiers' career, especially if the prediction is based upon spotty data analysis?
https://gcn.com/Blogs/Emerging-Tech/2015/11/Big-data-violence-prediction.aspx?s=gcntech_041115&p=1
Is anybody here troubled about the potential adverse impact this could have on a soldiers' career, especially if the prediction is based upon spotty data analysis?
https://gcn.com/Blogs/Emerging-Tech/2015/11/Big-data-violence-prediction.aspx?s=gcntech_041115&p=1
Mental Health Services
PTSD
Discipline
Violence
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 22
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You can use statistical data to determine trends in groups, but not in for individuals. Any statistician can say 3 cars in 100 will have an accident on Elm street between August and September, but they can't tell you WHICH 3 cars. Same applies to people.
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1LT William Clardy
Capt (Join to see), statistics can be very misleading when trying to apply probabilities to individuals.
When I dropped out of UVA, my adviser told me that I had less than a 20-percent chance of ever returning because 80 percent of college dropouts never go back to school. That turned out to be a 100-percent probability when I applied for readmission 7 years later and the University said no. So instead, I enrolled at James Madison University as a sophomore and then transferred to Cal Poly as a mechanical engineering student, wound up dropping out (again) after a couple of years at Cal Poly when making ends meet as a full-time student without a scholarship proved a little tough, and then, after a couple of more years spent 3 years studying history at Cal State Fullerton while starting a family.
Assessing what I think of the prediction that I would never go back to school will be left as an exercise for the student.
When I dropped out of UVA, my adviser told me that I had less than a 20-percent chance of ever returning because 80 percent of college dropouts never go back to school. That turned out to be a 100-percent probability when I applied for readmission 7 years later and the University said no. So instead, I enrolled at James Madison University as a sophomore and then transferred to Cal Poly as a mechanical engineering student, wound up dropping out (again) after a couple of years at Cal Poly when making ends meet as a full-time student without a scholarship proved a little tough, and then, after a couple of more years spent 3 years studying history at Cal State Fullerton while starting a family.
Assessing what I think of the prediction that I would never go back to school will be left as an exercise for the student.
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Capt (Join to see)
I'm happy you finished the degree and were able to commission. Very admirable. I'll just say this economists are paid a lot of money because they understand econometrics. A field of math/economics where they specialize in making decisions in uncertainty. They happen to be pretty good at it too. If they can use big data to help dos better allocate scarce resources to improve readiness this guy is all for it.
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1LT William Clardy
Capt (Join to see), I'm all for optimizing resource allocation, but that is a big "If" -- and I've seen many more folks who claimed to be able to accurately measure such things than could really do it. There is a reason that the very few who can get paid those big bucks.
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The reality is predictions don't always come true. They can use theoretical models to make these glasses by the end of the day just like the weather you never know.
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1LT William Clardy
Anybody with enough cash has access to that kind of technology, SFC (Join to see). The actual cost for the technology keeps getting lower, although finding the folks who can wield it accurately and effectively keeps getting harder (and more expensive).
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"The team created a consolidated dataset that pulled data from many different military datasets, including crime data, deployment data and the soldiers’ electronic medical records"....who signed the release for the medical records, and FOIA doesn't give access to med files (I could be wrong). This is wrong. Use a formula to get an "idea" of who is and who isn't susceptible to violence? So if this gives someone who would resemble PFC Snuffy in a data sense, we look at PFC Snuffy, but it turned out to be SSG Snuffy who's the real danger, but didn't fit the "mold" that this set forth what good did this "modeling" and passive profiling do for anyone?
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SSG Audwin Scott
Neither, that's just like trying to predict a terrorist attack, violence waits in silence to raise it's ugly head!
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1LT William Clardy
That's a darned good question, SSG Warren Swan, at least in my rarely humble opinion.
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SSG Warren Swan
1LT William Clardy - So basically NCO's continue on doing what we've been doing and knowing our Soldiers. That's probably a more accurate precursor of a possible incident that having a Ivy League "model" attempting to do it for us. I wonder did they have access to counseling and evals? How about social media pages? Heaven forbid this Soldier listens to Deathcore metal or Hardcore rap....Ohh he has a "muslimesque" name? Not Christian? Single parent home? I really don't like the way this could be used by anyone. More negatives in this than positives.
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Seems like a waste of time and money to study "Big Data". Just ask anyone who is / has served and we would all answer yes to likely becoming violent. The only thing is, we were trained on how to control it and when to use it. Granted there are those who have returned from combat tours and could not find their off button again. There is no way anyone could predict who will and will not be affected by combat and unable to find their off switch.
My real question is why would they want to know? Do they want to kick them out of the Military, maybe set up some totally unrealistic training classes, or send them in for medical evaluations. Big Brother getting ready to be put into play.
My real question is why would they want to know? Do they want to kick them out of the Military, maybe set up some totally unrealistic training classes, or send them in for medical evaluations. Big Brother getting ready to be put into play.
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1LT William Clardy
That is the unasked question in the article, isn't it, SSG Todd Halverson?
Assuming The Powers That Be can accurately identify the folks who can't control themselves -- or at least believe they can -- what do we expect them to do with that "knowledge"?
Assuming The Powers That Be can accurately identify the folks who can't control themselves -- or at least believe they can -- what do we expect them to do with that "knowledge"?
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Yeah, good luck with that. Psychs already have different ways of soliciting diagnoses from patients to the point that you can have a blind study on this and maybe achieve a 65% success. The remaining percentage, and the action/counseling/etc taken on that remainder, would create an outrage.
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Flirting with danger. Another way to undermine soldiers who you have a problem with.
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