# Perfectly unpredictable: Why forecasting produces useful rubbish

- Institution: Gresham College
- Speaker: Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli
- Year: 2008
- Level: For everyone
- Language: English
- Subjects: Business and management, Philosophy
- Source: [Gresham College](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/perfectly-unpredictable-why-forecasting-produces-useful-rubbish)
- Licence: [Educational use (Gresham College's terms)](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/terms-and-conditions)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (sources give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the source's own words)

At the heart of commerce is the notion that perfect markets aren't predictable, yet great efforts are expended on proving this notion wrong. This contradiction perplexes us as cyberspace's automated and not-so-virtual economies mirror our world, companies deploy innovative incipient trend detection and the apparent power of forecasting tools seems immense. Does increasing predictive power mean that prices are less important signals of preference? Can we predict new markets?

## Lectures

1. [Perfectly unpredictable: Why forecasting produces useful rubbish](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/gresham/perfectly-unpredictable-why-forecasting-produces-useful-rubbish/38e36ef39825) (YouTube)