Predictability: Our Ongoing Search for Certainty in an Uncertain World

Humans dislike, even fear uncertainty. The need to plan, to prepare for what is to come, has led to ever more complex attempts at prediction. Yet whatever the method, from astrology to divine guidance to economics, we have been left wanting. The world is unpredictable, and the most unpredictable element of it is us. How did we get to this point? And will advances in technology finally succeed in predicting humans? Not only by finding new patterns in vast quantities of data on every aspect of our behaviour, but by actually changing our habits and choices, making us inherently more predictable.

In a whistle-stop tour of prediction from early humans to science fiction via the Industrial Revolution, Predictability offers insight, reflection, ideas and even some predictions.