Wizards of Odds: The Power of Probability

Probability is the backbone of science, but how well do you understand it? Odds are, not as well as you think; it is a surprisingly subtle concept that is often misunderstood, sometimes even by professionals who use it to guide crucial and far-reaching decisions. In this program, experts from technology, physics, medicine, and programming explore the slippery side of probability and the powerful role it plays in modern life.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Original Program Date: May 30, 2015
Host: John Hockenberry
Participants: Robert Green, Leonard Mlodinow, Masoud Mohseni, Alan Peters

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Thomas Bayes and the history of A.I. 00:05

John Hockenberry's Introduction 5:48

Participant Introductions 8:51

What is the quantum notion of probability? 10:42

Googles dilation refrigerator 18:41

The Monty Hall problem 22:55

The Girl Named Florida problem 31:33

How does probability influence the medical field 40:45

How can people empower themselves with probability 54:08

How machines calculate probability 1:02:16

What is the Robo-naut? 1:12:50

Are humans relying on probability to determine lifestyle? 1:17:40

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[Verschlungen]

What a treat to see Mlodinow in person! I bought his book, The Drunkard's Walk, in 2013 and ten years later still refer to it frequently. I love it.
However, consider how he frames the Monty Hall problem there: "[U]nderstanding the Monty Hall problem requires no mathematical training. But it does require some careful logical thought" (p. 53). Stated slightly differently, what this means is that Monty Hall is really concerned with thinking like a programmer [or like a 'coder' as the kids would have it nowadays?], which means asking questions such as: "Where is the user now in the notional state machine?" The amount of probability per se is quite minimal in this (and many kindred) "probability" problems, which are often more like ivory tower parlor games.

[tedl]

John Hockenberry is my favorite moderator in this series....smart, likable and an excellent listener. He guides the conversations in a really productive and satisfying manner, and has a good sense of humor. Thanks John!

[Colhogan]

I think when it comes to luck and "lucky" people, there are instances where we create our own luck, so to speak. I used to sell cars a long time ago. The other salespeople used to always say I was lucky. In fact what it was, was I was willing to talk to people other's were not. Yes in many cases I knew the person couldn't buy right then. But I would do my thing and then just keep them in my bank of possibilities. Later on it always seemed that when I needed a sale the most, one of those "banked" people would come on the lot looking for me and would end up buying a car. It was only because I was willing to talk with them a month or two earlier and they had my card and remembered I was nice to them. The others would bypass people who they felt would not or could not buy immediately because they felt it was wasting valuable selling time. I felt investing in possibilities never hurt and sometimes when I needed them the most, they showed up and made my day. This was basically luck, but luck I created.

[LLO]

The first speaker 🔊 definitely needs a equalizer to transmit his correct frequency of communication.

[johnanderson]

Things are determined, and it's because of this that we see something we like to call probability

[goerizal]

the positive impact these programs give to the general public would be much more if precise english subtitles can also be provided for obvious reasons.

[CatmanFS]

"how much they know to rip you off" earned a like

[Jacob-yegu]

calling a test "99.9% accurate" has a definition that is dependent on the population. the chance of the test being correct is different given underlying positivity (sensitivity) or negativity (specificity). You can take a weighted average of these values for a given population to determine the "accuracy." But I think an incorrect assumption from "99.9% accuracy" is that the test has a 99.9% chance of being correct whether or not you have the disease, which of course it isn't.

[jamescarlisle]

Mlodinow's presentation helps to stop me from going to sleep.

[DavidHRyall]

Love to see conditional probability applied to covid - I suspect there are either vastly more or vastly less cases

[glenn-younger]

Thank you so much for providing still another lens through which we can view our world. I appreciate the work you do to bring science to the lay-nerds such as myself. :-)

[TheOnLeftBehind]

Hasoud seems sort of miserable when people start clapping D: He's like, "Yeah, clap for me, peasants." John is amazing, though. He has such a strong, uplifting presence.

[shera]

Thanks for the great panel and the great discussions! Dr. Peters talked about reducing the uncertainty of an autonomous agent regarding its environment by iteratively moving and adapting the prior belief based on the actions taken and the new sensory data. As I heard this perspective, it occurred to me that one could say the uncertainty distribution is like a complicated wave function getting narrower (asymptotically approaching a collapsed state) by the agent’s interactions with the environment, just as it does in quantum mechanics.
Could this make sense? Is this idea discussed anywhere? Any feedback is appreciated.

[alala]

For Dengue fever the correct result is 999/10998 because the test is wrong in the other direction too (with the same probability) when someone is sick and the test says that he is healthy. Though the difference is tiny.

[darksoul]

Driverless cars don't scare me at all. It's when people are driving the cars that it scares me.

[jandroid]

35:00 About the probability of a girl named Florida: it seems weird because it's easy to interpret it as "we've picked out a family with at least one girl, and oh by the way the girls name is <insert the picked girls name here>". That would be the same as the first problem (1/3). The second problem is the same as "we've picked out a family that has a girl named Florida". And this as they explain is 1/2.

[xoXDonnieXox]

People who are loved and fulfilled don't need substances.

[moestietabarnak]

About the Monthy hall problem; I always think a good demonstration would be to do it with 100 door, select one, then monthy open 98 .. do you switch ?

[Dugh.By]

The question about breast cancer regarding “the truth” or accuracy of that statistic and more so the answer of the guest about whether or not it is good of effective to be that vague about that statistic reminded me of a book that Bill Gates had once recommended as a “must read” called How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff. This guest basically said it’s ok and even good to “lie with statistics if it gets people to move in a good direction. A direction good for who? Especially when any info can be manipulated to achieve whatever outcome desired by the people divulging that information. Unreal!!!