2169: Predictive Models

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Predictive Models

Title text: WE WILL ARREST THE REVOLUTION MEMBERS

Explanation

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Predictive_text is a feature on many systems where as you type the system automatically suggests likely words or phrases to follow what you have written to that point. For instance, if you type "I'm heading" the system may suggest "home" or "back" as likely words to follow. Predictive systems usually use prior input to generate their predictions, so if you frequently type "Totally amazing!" the system will suggest "amazing!" every time you type "totally" even if you actually want to type "totally true" sometimes.

In the comic, Cueball is using predictive text to uncover a plot against him, or his organization/government. By typing in an obscure phrase related to revolution and a meeting, he gets the predictive text algorithm to display where and when the next, supposedly secret, meeting will be held. This works because it is unlikely that anyone else other than revolutionaries would be typing this phrase, thus the only data the algorithm has to match to it is the actual message from the revolutionaries on their next meeting.

Although the comic title is "Predictive Models", the term Predictive_modelling usually refers to computer programs that try to predict outcomes from data aggregation, such as reviewing health records to identify people most at risk from certain diseases based on weight, prior injuries, etc., before testing directly for the diseases themselves.

Predictive text has been parodied on xkcd before in

Transcript

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Discussion

If you click on the comic, it opens a page with error 404. Looking at the URL, it says "At the July 28th meeting", which I assume is the prediction result to the title text suggesting that they will be 1 month late. 162.158.106.174 17:13, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Fixsed it, my years of mediawiki knowledge have finally come to use. Iggyvolz (talk)

In the HTML tag for the link (the <a> tag surrounding the comic image) after the link it says "cancel the meeting! our cover is blown" Everlastingwonder (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

In the mobile version, you can read «See also: [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."» It leads to a 404, like the other examples in the comments here. 172.69.44.136 17:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

This looks a whole lot like Gmail's Smart Compose 172.68.206.76

Today GMail actually predicted the beginning of my mail correctly. I typed literally zero characters and it already knew how to continue. In the future, we won't even have to upload our brains to a computer, a backup will already be available there automatically. Fabian42 (talk) 21:32, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Not a backup, a simulation. 108.162.219.184 04:46, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

If you can't tell the difference, does it matter? 173.245.48.147 17:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

On my Mac the title text only shows "WE WILL ARREST THE REVOLUTION MEMBERS" while on my iPad (where you long press to see title texts) long pressing only shows the link. Weird. Also someone remind me to check the link again on July 28. Herobrine (talk) 13:10, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

On my Ubuntu system, both Firefox and Chrome display "WE WILL ARREST THE REVOLUTION MEMBERS" as the title text and "https://xkcd.com/[AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab]" as the link target, which is also what's in the HTML source. Additionally, the HTML source is malformed, with quotes inside quotes in the href attribute. - Linneris (talk) 14:37, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Malformed. Precisely! I think there was a glitch while the comic was uploaded, which used the title text as a link in addition to as the title text. It didn't include the last part due to the quotes. It will be either fixed or legitimate, or at least make the href a little nicer. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 21:24, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Actually... Looking at the comic again (for the first time on my PC), I would like to rethink that. I think this is Randall's method of demonstrating the [tab]; clicking and looking at the URL. [EDIT] Man, the more I think, the weirder it gets. Maybe it's about how sometimes you can find the information on the client side in the code where it should be hidden? I don't know anymore. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 21:27, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

When you look at the source of that 404 page, you can see six HTML comments with the content a padding to disable MSIE and Chrome friendly error page. This is to prevent MSIE and Chrome from displaying "helpful" proprietary error pages. If you change the link in the slightest, you will also get a 404 page, but without these comments. I assume that either this was a glitch (intended or unintended) and this particular 404 page was modified so that everyone can see that the authors are aware of it, *or* it's a hint pointing to somewhere else. A rabbit hole maybe? I would like the latter to be true, but I haven't found anything.--162.158.90.168 22:42, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Not for me. I see the same tiny Nginx 404 page with the same HTML source as any other 404 page due to invalid link on xkcd.com. - Linneris (talk) 07:14, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

My computer did that, but then it didn't happen anymore and the title text was complete.172.69.44.146 13:09, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

This reminds me of that time where via data analytics on things like shopping habits, Target figured out that a teen girl was pregnant before her father did. Ahiijny (talk) 06:42, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I tried this on google, and got "we will arrest chamisa" and "the meeting will be in room 27" and "our next meeting will be at 3 p.m. on wednesday". Any more? 162.158.59.214 19:16, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I decided to see what a more sophisticated predictive model would do, so I plugged it into Talk to Transformer. The output: "Long live the revolution. Our next meeting will be at 10 a.m. on December 14 at the Cressey Building, 1636 S. Second St. Please invite your friends, family, and coworkers! For those interested in donating to the cause, please contact:" I'm legitimately impressed. Arcorann (talk) 01:03, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Thinking about predictive text, in combination with the advice on the futility of making people change their passwords frequently, perhaps systems which require people to change their passwords could be more helpful by observing the pattern the user is using, and suggesting what the next password should be. Passwords Evolved: Authentication Guidance for the Modern Era 162.158.106.216 20:05, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

This paragraph was in the explanation, however the cited source gives no information about how the private correspondence was obtained, and no suggestion that the privacy of the communication channel was compromised. (The most obvious way that such information would be obtained is that somebody who was party to the communication made it available.) I moved it here in case somebody has sources to show that it was a breach of security. "As humanity adapts to a digital world, people are finding that their digital communications provide the illusion of confidentiality, with damaging results when the information leaks out. Real-life examples include a 2016 British trainee doctor strike, where a technically-secure WhatsApp group leaked information to the press." 108.162.245.220 05:18, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Incomplete tag worth saving for posterity, due to H2G2 reference: Created by a PREDICTIVE MODEL THAT WILL BE FIRST AGAINST THE WALL WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES. --172.68.47.240 01:56, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

So... is that midnight at 00:00hrs or 24:00hrs upon that date? Might the intending captors choose wrongly and lose the opportunity to pounce upon those they wish to take captive? 172.71.178.137 01:20, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Social media has been used in revolutions

Once revolutions achieve critical mass, they often communicate on more insecure channels. Many of the Arab Spring revolutions involved spread through Twitter. Broadly speaking the security vs contagiousness issues often cause disagreement among revolutionaries.

I.E. Trotskyist/Stalinist disagreements over "Permanent revolution" (expansionist) vs "Socialism in one country" (security and development of the USSR without spending all available surplus on spreading communism directly).