Education in a Taxicab
Taleb recalls experts whose detailed political knowledge seemed to give them no forecasting advantage over a driver, despite greater confidence. The lesson is to test whether expertise improves predictions in the domain at hand.
THE IDEA
Education in a Taxicab
I will introduce the third element of the triplet, the curse of learning, as follows. I closely watched my grandfather, who was minister of defense, and later minister of the interior and deputy prime minister in the early days of the war, before the fading of his political role. In spite of his position he did not seem to know what was going to happen any more than did his driver, Mikhail. But unlike my grandfather, Mikhail used to repeat “God knows” as his main commentary on events, transferring the task of understanding higher up.
I noticed that very intelligent and informed persons were at no advantage over cabdrivers in their predictions, but there was a crucial difference. Cabdrivers did not believe that they understood as much as learned people—really, they were not the experts and they knew it. Nobody knew anything, but elite thinkers thought that they knew more than the rest because they were elite thinkers, and if you’re a member of the elite, you automatically know more than the nonelite.
It is not just knowledge but information that can be of dubious value. It came to my notice that almost everybody was acquainted with current events in their smallest details. The overlap between newspapers was so large that you would get less and less information the more you read. Yet everyone was so eager to become familiar with every fact that they read every freshly printed document and listened to every radio station as if the great answer was going to be revealed to them in the next bulletin. People became encyclopedias of who had met with whom and which politician said what to which other politician (and with what tone of voice: “Was he more friendly than usual?”). Yet to no avail.
When to use it
When making predictions in complex, uncertain environments (e.g., stock market, election outcomes).
When evaluating expert forecasts, compare demonstrated predictive performance with the confidence expressed.
When consuming news: recognize that more information does not necessarily lead to better understanding or prediction.
When leading a team: be aware that your expertise might create a false sense of certainty, and seek diverse, humble viewpoints.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
The Minister and His Driver
The author's grandfather, a high-ranking minister, had no better insight into future events than his driver Mikhail. Yet Mikhail humbly deferred to God's knowledge, while the minister (and other elite thinkers) assumed their status gave them superior understanding.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
In what areas of your life do you rely on expertise that might actually give you no predictive advantage?
How can you test whether your knowledge actually improves your predictions or merely inflates your confidence?
Think of a situation where you assumed you understood more than someone else—was that assumption justified?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Black Swan The Impact of the Highly Improbable With a new section On Robustness and Fragility (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)