Techdirt Podcast Episode 250: Modeling The Pandemic

from the different-approaches dept

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, nobody really knows what’s going to happen — especially if kids start going back to school. Statistical models of the possibilities abound, but this week we’re joined by some people who are taking a different approach: John Cordier and Don Burke are the founders of Epistemix, which is using a new agent-based modeling approach to figure out what the future of the pandemic might look like.

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Comments on “Techdirt Podcast Episode 250: Modeling The Pandemic”

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5 Comments
crade (profile) says:

I am having a hard time understanding how you can model things that are based on personal decisions like policy while only having basic statistical info.. How could you tell things like how likely people would be to wear masks in area A vs area B or how susceptible people might be to bad info in area A vs B or how likely they are to gather together? Do you try to predict things like which areas will have gatherings and protests? What sort of decisions does your system allow your "people" to perform based on their statistical features?

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Making it worse, how does one model the impact of disinformation, like that espoused by our Leaderist in Chief (a supposition assumed by him and him only)? Was it accepted? Was it effective? How about other espouser’s of disinformation, as they perceive the economy more important than human lives. Where in the models is disinformation taking place? There is no question that it should, the question is what is considered disinformation, how much value should be applied to that disinformation, either positive or negative?

Then, who makes that decision? Not the White House…I hope.

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