Beware of treating clouds like clocks

This article argues that the growing use of cheap computational power risks encouraging us to pretend that wide, complex problems are narrow, simple ones.

Beware of treating clouds like clocks

Rory SutherlandOgilvyOne London and Ogilvy Group UK

The growing use of cheap computational power encourages us to pretend that wide, complex problems are narrow, simple ones.

This is a typical school maths question:

Two buses leave the same bus station at noon. One travels west at a constant 30mph, the other travels north at a constant 40mph. What time will it be when the buses are 100 miles apart?

This is a typical real-life problem:

I need to catch a plane leaving Gatwick at 8am. How should I get there (by train, taxi...

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