Prediction Addiction

Elad Medan, Roy Amit

How will we reach our destination? What will we watch? What will we think about? What decisions will we make? How will we spend our time? In the past, we may have turned to mysticism for answers, but in recent decades, statistics have increasingly taken its place in various fields related to our ability to predict and determine our future. From short-term decisions to existential dilemmas, we now look to algorithms for guidance. Our faith in this technology grows has raised a new concern: that perhaps algorithms are no longer limited to predicting the future but also possess the ability to shape it. "Prediction Addiction" is a coffee stand where algorithms write our future. The machine generates and hands out fortunes based on its own considerations. Instead of taking the risk of calculating probabilities, it selects one possible future from a statistical database with a normal distribution, like any predictive algorithm would.