Table of Contents

Introduction vii
1 Prediction and Risk 1
2 The Complexity of Prediction 9
3 The Quantasaurus 17
4 The Trouble with Risk 39
5 New Tools of Prediction 57
6 Mortality and Its Possibilities 75
7 Crime and Privacy 97
8 The Smart Killing Machine 115
9 Predicting Performance 133
10 The Plague of Polling 151
11 Free Will, AI Jobs, and the Ultimate Paradox 167
Afterword: The Future of the Universe 183
Acknowledgments 189
Bibliography 191
Index 207

About the Author

Igor Tulchinsky is founder, chairman, and CEO of WorldQuant, a quantitative investment firm based in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. He is the author of Finding Alphas- A Quantitative Approach to Building Trading Strategies and The UnRules- Man, Machines and the Quest to Master Markets.

Christopher E. Mason is Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Director of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction. He also holds affiliate appointments at the New York Genome Center, Yale Law School, and the Consortium for Space Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mason is the author of The Next 500 Years- Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds.

Reviews

Included in The Next Big Idea Club’s August 2023 Must-Read Books list
Included in FT business books — what to read this month

“[An] ambitious new survey of how predictive algorithms are changing the world.”
—Financial Times

“The authors’ spirited dialogue illuminates their detailed survey of what predictive tech can do, from warfare to politics.”
— New Scientist
  
“The Age of Prediction details how predictive certainties can bring about complacency or even an increase in risks”
—Daily Kos
  
“A brilliant analysis of two abstractions that are increasingly shaping our lives.”  
—Blogging on Business
  
This is a mixed review, but here is a good pull quote “an engaging overview of just how rapidly our predictive powers are expanding.”
—Law & Liberty

“[An] articulate book on how current and future artificial-intelligence algorithms will change apprehension of risk and affect human behavior.” 
—Nature