Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying, “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” At the risk of stating the obvious, I would claim that the only thing that is certain in life is uncertainty. As we will see in this chapter, not only must we master the art of simplification, but we must also try our best to understand where uncertainty comes from, and how to make decisions when we’re not sure about the results of our actions (Figure 6-1).
Figure 6-1. Understanding the underlying uncertainty
The main takeaway from this chapter is that to make decisions under uncertainty we will seek to maximize the mathematical expectation of our business result. We must therefore start by providing enough background on probability theory so that we feel comfortable with calculating expectations. I will also provide a primer into the theory of decision-making under uncertainty and finish by applying this toolkit to our use cases.
Where Does Uncertainty Come From?
Uncertainty reflects our ignorance about something. In the sciences, uncertainty or randomness are commonly associated with our lack of knowledge about the causes of some phenomenon. So where does it come from? We have already talked about this in Chapter 2, so let me just summarize what was mentioned there.
Many times, the source of our uncertainty reflects, literally, our ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
