My conviction is that this so called technology is all crap, they think they got something but I am sure time will disprove their claims. They did more predictions using it, one of them is that the economic crisis is going to be over by the end of the summer. How did they conclude that?

There are less searches done by individuals on the topic

Yeah that's right...talk about simpletons...as if there couldn't be any other reason for a decline. They did not even bother to put in verified facts and concluded this based on just search behavior! They assume that the peoples "media manipulated" feelings are correct and are thus a strong predictive indicator. Also the idea that if enough people believe something, it will become true automatically...now lets all think we can fly...we don't need airplanes and cars anymore then. BTW...how did we get into the mess in the first place...its not as if we all started looking for the word financial crisis.

It's a "human assumption" based technology...that kind of sums it up IMO.

And don't forget reverse usage as in pay cuts to those least likely to leave. Or what about a company using such a tool that can create new discriminating factors that reinforce themselves. Say you got 10 people working for you and your tool classifies the two that it thinks have the highest chance of leaving. The managers sees this and realizes that investing in those is more risky then on the others.

This could then translate in a decision to not give those two some training that most of the others will get or to simply not put them forward for promotion. Clearly that will raise the real chance of those classified as most likely to leave...to leave. Thus the tools predictions **seem** right when looking back.

But any feedback that does not take in account the decisions that were made based on its earlier predictions and where the "target" group was not split in a scientific manner (like a double blind test) will pollute its own model. Yes it seems like it has predictive power but in reality it does not have any at all. People making decisions are likely to make those predictions come true without them realizing it.

The very idea is just fraud with problems.