Now on bbc news, its hardtalk with stephen sackur. Welcome to hardtalk, im stephen sackur. The worldwide spread of coronavirus and its significant negative impact on the Global Economy represents a powerful illustration of the perils of forecasting. Countries in lockdown, Financial Markets in turmoil this isnt the way 2020 was supposed to pan out. An opportune moment then for my guest today. Acclaimed writer and businesswoman margaret heffernan, to publish a book challenging the fetishisation of forecasting. Is it time to embrace uncertainty . Margaret heffernan, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. I think we would all like to believe that as Human Knowledge expands, particularly with technology, our ability to forecast the future accurately improves. Is it your contention that that is not true . It isnt my contention that it isnt true. Definitely, our capacity to forecast many things has improved, specifically the weather although it may not often feel that way. But i think what has happened is that our expectation of that improvement was continuously possible, that it would eventually end up with perfect forecastability. I think that has not been proved and in fact, you know, both physicists and experts in forecasting will say that there is ineradicable uncertainty in Human Systems and natural systems, and that while we become very attracted by all of the stuff we can predict, like a gps can tell you, roughly, roughly, how long it will take you to drive home for example. It cant predict whether a cats going to run in the road and stop everybody and hold up traffic. It cant predict if suddenly there is going to be a car crash in front of you. There are these aspects of uncertainty that are always going to be with us. Sure, but probability is important. If we are to use forecasting to make big, Strategic Decisions about our own individual futures and our collective futures as society and as a species, then knowing what is probably going to happen and the percentage of likelihood, all of the things that go into forecasting and the results of forecasting they are very important. They are important but i would say two things. First of all, even professional mathematicians say that they find probability counterintuitive and hard to grasp. If its hard for them, its harder for the rest of us. I think the other thing is that, the real experts in forecasting say they think that with all the best they can deliver, they can be reasonably accurate about 400 days out. The rest of us, who dont have all that training and success and data and all that time to spend mulling over it, they reckon the window is about 150 days. So when it comes to many things in our lives like where to live, what kind ofjob to do, what kind of industry to be in, actually, i think we have to come to terms with the fact that life changes all of the time in ways that we cant protect and uncertainty is a feature of human existence. You say uncertainty is a feature and i suppose there could not be a more obvious time to be discussing this than right now. You wrote this book, uncharted, well before coronavirus became the world preoccupation but here we. Do you regard what is happening right around the world today with notjust the healthcare crisis being faced by populations around the world but also the economic breakdown we see happening in front of our eyes. Do you see that as some sort of vindication of your proposition . I would hate to say that because it suggests that i am kind of happy about it. Im not for a moment trying to suggest that. Im really not happy about it but i would say that when i started working on the book about four years ago, the argument around uncertain was definitely not going my way and many people i talked to just didnt get it, just didnt buy it and thought i was flat wrong. Because they felt that particularly with the rise of ai and big data. Absolutely. We are going to know everything and we are indeed masters of the universe. I think now, i would love to think that the cogent arguments in my book changed everybodys mind but i think the truth is, the facts have changed everybodys mind. I think what interests me about coronavirus is the way different governments are handling the challenge and the future challenge in very different ways. So, we have beijing where once they grasped the seriousness of the situation, they committed to, i think what one senior official described as, the elimination of the virus as a threat to the chinese public within months. They issued their forecasts of what would happen and they used Central Government power to deliver it. Maybe they were onto something . I think what is interesting is what they were able to do was to harness a lot of resources very, very fast. I think most people saw the photographs of hospitals being built overnight. And i think in the western world, we have become so entranced by what i think of as the myth of infinite efficiency that all of those resources, weve been cutting back and cutting back and cutting back, and efficiency is fantastic when you know exactly what youre going to need. But once you accept that there is some uncertainty in the system, you have to accept that you also need robustness, in other words, you need extra, you need slack in the system. So that when the unexpected occurs, you have the resources to throw at it. I think whats really startling about this pandemic is that were having confront the fact that we served efficiency with such devotion that we cut that robustness out of our systems. Just a really trivial example . In all retailers and manufacturers have gone over to just in time razor thin margins of time and money and shipping. Which everybody thought was the miracle of modern industrialisation. Just in time is why no chemists have Hand Sanitisers at the moment because they didnt have any extra anywhere. And i think we have so fallen into this trap of efficiency thinking weve forgotten theres always going to be surprises. Coming back to your idea that forecasting can take us into dangerous areas, it can be misleading and positively counter productive. A lot of people are doing forecasting today about where this pandemic is going to go, about how many people will ultimately be affected. For one, chancellor merkel in germany said that she believes up to 70 of her own german population could end up infected with coronavirus. Are you saying that politicians should avoid all of that forecasting all together . I think it would be helpful to avoid that forecasting because again, she didnt attach a probability to it and it may well be that by next week, she adjusts her numbers. What good forecasters do is they are constantly adjusting their numbers, and also, what does that mean 70 are infected . Some of those people will experience absolutely nothing, we know that kids may be infected but experience no symptoms. In other people, itll be excruciatingly painful but not life threatening and in some people, we know it will be life threatening. Thats a very Broad Spectrum which the 70 doesnt really illustrate in any kind of meaningful way at all. Let us look beyond coronavirus and think deeply about what forecasting depends upon. It does depend upon increasingly access to huge amounts of data, big data is the phrase. And the analysis of the data, using algorithms, we all know now that thats the Foundation Stone of Artificial Intelligence and thats being used increasingly across governments, business it almost sounds to me like youre saying, dont trust Artificial Intelligence, it gets stuff wrong as much as it gets stuff right. It does get a lot wrong. First of all, we know that it is biased, which is why amazonia couldnt figure out an ai to do gender neutral hiring and after two years, gave up. We know that in systems where its been used to try and predict who will need social benefits or whos eligible for parole that it makes really gross errors. We know that it often makes, what would be if people operated the same way, illegal errors, in terms of deciding whos eligible for a job and who isnt. Youre pointing to what you regard as the errors, why not look at some of the extraordinary successes of ai . You only have to look at the way social media platforms work to know that they are extraordinarily successful in targeting and reaching out and predicting behaviours. Yeah, its quite of interesting though isnt it because even although Cambridge Analytica made a big song and dance about how they won the election and they won the brexit vote, actually they dont know who voted how. So they claimed something they saw as a victory and then all of a sudden it wasnt so cool to boast about it, but actually you cant prove that it was them that won it. When it comes to pandemics theres something really important here, and experts in pandemics have told me, every epidemic is different, or as they said, in the dataset, n i every single one is different. You can try and extract from the data general rules about what is helpful but what you know is that this is not like the last time. I understand that but again, youre pointing to the negatives and problems, but im seeing some of the assets the technology is bringing us, notjust ai but also genetics. The fact were building a genetic database about all of humanity and the more we know about yours and my genetic make up, my prediliction to lung disease or yours. Or my likely lifespan based on my genetic health, the more that can inform forecasts about Public Health strategies. This isntjust about coronavirus but all forms of healthcare going forward, isnt that exciting . It is absolutely exciting and i would be the last person in the world to say that we dont want that knowledge but i think you have to keep recognising that even what genetic testing will tell us is around probabilities and not certainties. Theres a huge amount that we dont understand. For example, we know that identical twins have identical dna but we also know that if one of those twins gets multiple sclerosis, if genetics were destiny, the other one would too. In fact, the likelihood of the other one getting it is just 30 . Lets be honest, we still dont know what accounts for the fact that some children who were born blonde turn. There hair turns brown and some it doesnt. We dont have a genetic explanation for something as simple as that. Its not that we shouldnt keep learning, of course we should keep learning, but we have to recognise that genetics are not destiny, that much happens to people in their lives and that if we start treating genetics as destiny, we treat as certain something which remains ambiguous. Ok, so both on the abilities of ai to change our world and allow us to forecast and the ability of genetics to allow us to forecast, youre a sceptic. What do you make of the rise of what has been called a breed of super forecasters, and interestingly, the chief adviser to the current Prime Minister in the uk, borisjohnson, that is Dominic Cummings, he advised all of us journalists recently to stop chuntering and listen to the super forecasters. He referred to one particular individual in the united states, Philip Tetlock out in pennsylvania, a political scientist and psychologist, the founderfather of this notion of super forecasting. Do you believe in super forecasting . I interviewed philip tetlok for my book because im very captivated by his notion, and i agreed broadly with what he said, but i think Dominic Cummings may be missing a few details here in that when tetlock describes super forecasters, they are people with very open minds, theyre not ideological and are constantly reviewing it, revising their opinions. I dont think anybody genuinely believes that that describes Dominic Cummings. You think he is harnessing super forecasting for a much more ideological project . Yep and i think the heart and soul of super forecasting, and tetlock writes about this brilliantly, is that these are pretty ordinary people so they not kind of genetically supreme, shall we say, who read very widely, keep a very open mind, are super curious about the world, notice all kinds of small things and, you know, dont come to a conclusion overnight. And they are willing to recognise when they get it wrong. Isnt one of the key problems with your notion that we need to respect and even embrace some certainty, that it encourages endless argument and division about what is happening in the world today and more than anything else, im thinking of Climate Change. It seems to be one of the most important ways the public mind has changed on Climate Change as an issue is because of forecasts. Forecasts of trajectory, where we are going in terms of the planets dangerous warming but your advice to us all is, actually, dont get hung up with forecasts because they may well be wrong, dont take them seriously. I think there is a really important distinction to be made here which is we can know some things, and i would include Climate Change on this, and epidemics, are generally certain. We know that epidemics will continue to happen, we know that Climate Change is real, let mejust finish if i may. Everything else youve just said, how can we take seriously the fact you decided you know Climate Change forecasts are accurate. Youve questioned so much else. So we know the preponderance of evidence says that Climate Change is real. We know, for example, the bank of england says there will be further crashes. We know that epidemics will continue to happen in human existence. Thats generally certain but, and its an important but, its specifically ambiguous, which is to say we cant forecast which forests are going to catch fire next year, which houses are going to be flooded next year or even this summer and we cant say why or when the next banking crash will come we know it will happen and therefore, instead of hoping to plan, assuming that these things wont exist, we do much better to prepare on the assumption that they will exist. Right. Its just you, margaret heffernan, write this in the book uncharted, the hard truth is so much in life always will be unpredictable. We are better off accepting that than falling for propaganda. Now, the Climate Change deniers describe the forecasts of doom for the planet unless we take dramatic action on reducing emissions, they describe that as propaganda. It seems to me youre making an argument which Climate Change deniers just for one group could well take hold of and advantage of. I think actually, the problem is different from the one youve described. I think because we cant predict exactly as it were, month by month, how Climate Change will play out, weve been stalled and done nothing for 30 years. And i think if we had been willing to accept this is generally true, specifically ambiguous, but it represents such a huge threat that we cant afford to wait for the perfect data, if we had done that, we would be far more advanced in our fight against Climate Change than we are today and i think this obsession that we have to have the perfect plan before we can walk outside the door, i think this holds us back from doing the things we need to do and the things we could do. And a perfect example of this is the coalition for epidemic preparedness, which although governments werent terribly keen years ago, started up saying actually, because we know these things are going to happen, we need to start now putting in place the things that will need when they do. But again, its problematic because you develop this idea of preparedness and being imaginative and creative about the different range of possible futures one needs to consider. Right, which speaks to probability. Of course, i get all that and on one level its commonsense but on another level, if you are in government, you cant afford to be investing in the preparatory infrastructure for a whole range of options because by definition some of those options will never come to pass on all the infrastructure youve invested in and the special measures youve taken will have been a waste of money and utterly redundant. Im not saying you invest in everything obviously, that would be nonsense, but for example, after the banking crisis, what did we do . We made the banks keep more capital so when they were hit by shock, that we could not forecast, when they were hit by shocks they would be more stable. In other words we did exactly what im talking about which is, we said we dont know when the next crash will come, you dont know what will cause it, lets invest capital and making sure these institutions are more stable and one reason why todays stock market is going mad and will do for weeks to come, one reason the banks are stable is because of what we did then and all im saying is, you can take the same attitude to other things when you know they are generally certain and specifically ambiguous and be better prepared than some people, places too. 0ne extraordinary influential sector of 2ist century life and culture that you seem to have a downer on, see as a malign influence, is big tech. Yes. You seem to be saying the more we subcontract our thinking, our analysis, our future projection and prediction of what the world is going to become to machines, the more we are rendering ourselves incapable of independent thought. And you seem to be saying big tech is encouraging us to allow them to make the key decisions in the future because it serves their self interest. You see them as very malign. Yes, which is ironic because i ran Tech Companies for years and i love a lot of technology but i dont really love what its become. And i think actually whats happened in Silicon Valley, the whole Business Model based on big data, if we had all the data in the world about you, we can predict what you want and thats how we make money. They can make life better for you, is their position. Well, we can definitely sell you more stuff, lets put it that way. As we know everything about you, we think we can predict what you want to make money out of you by doing that. And actually whats happened is, it doesnt work, it doesnt work the way everyone hoped and as a consequence, as a consequence, you are seeing this shift to, ok, lets use all sorts of conditioning tools, some kind of carrots and some sticks to make you do what we want you to do because actually, we cant predict it. Is it really, though, robbing you of agency because youre suggesting it is but at the same time i got a smartphone in my pocket which is a window to all of the worlds knowledge. It gives me, it empowers me in a sense to get away from traditional hierarchies, it gives me more of a voice in the world, notjust me but billions of other people. Isnt that something to be celebrated . Certainly the tech ceos who you seem to have fallen out with, think so. Well. They would, wouldnt they . One of them, john booney, says tech is overwhelmingly positive force in the world for one reason, anyone with an Internet Connection has all the worlds knowledge at theirfingertips, Digital Technology truly gives us freedom. Well, i would absolutely argue with that. For example, what we can already see is that its really damaging our power of concentration. We can see that the more you use gps, the less spatial awareness you have. We can see that we are becoming so used to distraction that we cant actually sit down and read books for more than five minutes before we have to jump up and do something. The truth of the matter is, all new inventions have a Positive Side and a negative side. And we have a huge deluge of propaganda coming at us from Silicon Valley while at the same time realising that our ability, for example, to have conversations just like this, face to face, not through a machine, that is profoundly limited. I know kids today who cant actually communicate with each other face to face. They cant do interviews for universities, forjobs because they actually have never practiced it because they never needed to. I dont think that is a trivial loss. What you are saying overall seems to be a very important about human agency and whether we are actually gaining or losing as we progress through the 21st century. I just want to end with the thought that goes back to your earlier books about wilful blindness, when you talked about the way organisations, groups and communities, even individuals, they see bad stuff happening but often they stay quiet about it. And you refer to everything from bankers during the financial crisis of 07 08, people involved in the occupation of the iraq. And i think you alluded to feminism and some of the things women put up within their individual lives. Since you wrote the book, weve had metoo. Right. Does that give you hope in this sense, human beings are beginning to confront wilful blindness . Yes. And i also think human beings have a phenomenal capacity to experiment, to invent, to explore. And in many ways what this book is saying is, dont rely on forecasts to tell you what to do. Think for yourself, look around for yourself. Have conversations, take risks. Invent different things, explore by yourself because actually human agency is what has created all the best things in our world today. And we need to cherish it and protect it and not let it be taken from us by people who purport to know exactly what is going to happen tomorrow. A very interesting note to end on. Margaret heffernan, thank you so much for being on the hardtalk. My pleasure. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Good morning. Very little weather change during the next 24 36 hours and that means for england and wales, for many of you, blue skies will continue to dominate, a bit of warmth from that spring sunshine too, whereas for scotland, Northern Ireland, like we saw yesterday, rather cloudy skies. And for some its going to be particularly wet. Especially the closer you are to this weather front, which will straddle the north west of scotland throughout, and it will take a while for that to gradually shift. That could cause some minorflooding. Further south, High Pressure remains dominant and to take us into the start of today, it means where weve got the clearest of the skies, the chilliest conditions. A sprinkle of frost across england and wales, with temperatures very close to freezing. Sunshine dominating here once again. Whereas further north, scotland and Northern Ireland, cant rule out some sunshine to the east and north of Higher Ground but rain will come and go, particularly across the highlands and more especially the hebrides, later into skye, 0rkney, and shetland and its across the far north west. Gale force winds with that rain. There is the chance of some minorflooding. As i said, the odd splash of rain elsewhere across scotland, Northern Ireland. But most will be dry. A bit more cloud to the far western fringes of england and wales but for most blue skies overhead once again. And it will be an even warmer day than we saw on monday. Temperatures could hit around 17 degrees in North East Wales and around merseyside. So a great day to get those windows open, let a bit of fresh air through. Temperatures in scotland, Northern Ireland, 10 12 degrees. Theyre not going to drop too much as we go through tuesday night into wednesday, because the cloud, the breeze will be in place and further outbreaks of rain persisting across the North West Highlands especially. Away from that, though, a bit more cloud, Northern England and north wales, the temperatures not dropping as much as itll do to take us into this morning. But its across the midlands, southern england, in particular, where were likely to see a frost to start wednesday. Lots of sunshine once again for england and wales though on wednesday. Still fairly cloudy for scotland and Northern Ireland. The rain, though, will have eased off in the far north west. Could even brighten up here. But there will still be some splashes of rain elsewhere in scotland and Northern Ireland to take us through the day. Temperatures still could get close to 16 17 degrees for england and wales. To take us into thursday, there will be a bit more mist and fog around across parts of scotland, Northern England, with lighter winds. Plenty of sunshine, though, for most across england and wales. Still fairly cloudy for scotland, Northern Ireland. But most places will be dry by this stage. Its starting to turn colder from the north. And that trend continues towards the end of the week. This weather front here is just basically a zone of cloud which will work its way southward and, as High Pressure starts to build in behind it, well, thats when we start to see the winds switch round into a northerly direction, potentially bringing some of the coldest air weve seen for a while. That, though, will be offset by the strength of the march sunshine. But, either way, as you can see from some of these city forecasts, just giving you a flavour, temperatures drop back into single figures widely this weekend and one or two flurries of snow are possible. This is bbc world news. Im sally bundock. 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