" Ada“ versus ”Chanakya“

Hello there !!

During the recent US elections , Hillary Clinton relied heavily upon an Algorithm called "Ada" to help her plot a victory in the race for President.  The algorithm programme is named after    Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace who is considered as the world's first computer programmer. But this time all the heavy data analytics proved wrong. In computer science, there’s a saying, “garbage in, garbage out,” that highlights the dangers of bad data.

Something went wrong with the data in so garbage came out. Clintons campaign managers relied on the programme  to help Clinton’s team decide where they should dedicate their resources. But while Ada could help the Clinton campaign best determine when and where to trot out pop stars it overlooked the power of the rustic voters in the rustic belt of America. 

The algorithm was said to play a role in virtually every strategic decision Clinton aides made, including where and when to deploy the candidate and her battalion of surrogates and where to air television ads — as well as when it was safe to stay dark.

Meanwhile, Trump was doing 3 rallies a day, across multiple states, and up to 5 a day (including until after midnight) in the days leading up to the election, drawing crowds in excess of ten thousand people.Where was Clinton during all of this? Almost nowhere to be seen. It seems to me that Ada made some pretty terrible choices. 

Donald Trump‘s campaign relied on some primitive methods  prior to the election, for determining where best to concentrate resources. As the various report describes, they seemed to base their decisions from the emotions of crowds attending Trump’s rollicking campaign events and drafted a win.

Coming back to our own super complicated algorithm, which is called Chanakya.  In case you’re wondering who this Chanakya is, then let me tell you, it’s a fish. 

Chanakya sits in a tank at Chennai-based NGO Indian Community Welfare Organisation (ICWO), and makes predictions. Not by speech, but by choosing one of the two feed sticks lowered into its tank, each with one candidate’s name. Chanakya is being compared to Paul the octopus who had made prophesies during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Chanakya got all the last eight matches in the World Cup football correct。 This time too it got it right. 

Chanakya the predictor

More in next , also drop me a line about what you find good and what you find difficult. It will go a long way in future blog articles