Data values are nothing without the exact context in which they were created and the exact context in which they are used. That's like level 1 data analysis.
Publishing such data without context is deceitful.
How is it published without context? We know that this is the age field from the social security system. And that the query omits records that are recorded as dead. Therefore, the social security system in America has records that claimed to be for people who are alive for whom the date of birth field is incompatible with that status. That seems like quite a lot of context, actually.
I don't know why some people are finding it so hard to accept that there is likely to be fraud in this system. Look into the determined origins of the so called blue zones to see that every country has problems with this, albeit some more than others. It's the government giving out free money, so naturally it attracts very sophisticated fraud schemes and civil servants are rarely motivated to track it down and investigate properly.
It does seem to me that logically, you have two choices:
1) Take the numbers at face value. In that case, you are predicting millions of accusations of fraud and an enormous number of prosecutions in the next year or two.
2) the situation is somehow more complicated, and most of those millions of records with 140+ ages do not represent fraudulent activity.
P.S. Mentioning the blue zones is incredibly silly. Those regions have modest numbers of individuals being reported in the 100-120 age range, which probably are fraudulent. None of those areas have millions being reported to be 140+. For instance, Sardinia had 13 reported centenarians per 100,000 population, which would be equivalent to ~39,000 centenarians in the US. So it's orders of magnitude less than this database shows.
It all boils down to what you consider more likely. Someone not quite understanding the data they're looking at or that nobody noticed several tens of millions of dead people receiving social security.
Whichever it is I would be very careful before making any grand public statements about it. And as far as fraud goes this doesn't sound anywhere near sophisticated.
How many of those are test data, simple clerical errors (and how many of those are already in the process of being rectified), and how many of those are in actual use (e.g. how many actually use those SSNs in the wild)?
This is the important missing context. Musk can and does claim a lot. He rarely, if ever, provides any evidence or context. And none of his or his team's actions can be verified or monitored.
Context would be for example knowing how the code around the data handles those values. Some numbers in a database do not in any way imply real world effects.
Another thing is that COBOL records commonly have complicated unions (to save space) where a separate code affects how you interpret the fields. You need to understand all the business logic to make sure you are reading the data correctly.
mike_hearn|1 year ago
I don't know why some people are finding it so hard to accept that there is likely to be fraud in this system. Look into the determined origins of the so called blue zones to see that every country has problems with this, albeit some more than others. It's the government giving out free money, so naturally it attracts very sophisticated fraud schemes and civil servants are rarely motivated to track it down and investigate properly.
hyperpape|1 year ago
1) Take the numbers at face value. In that case, you are predicting millions of accusations of fraud and an enormous number of prosecutions in the next year or two.
2) the situation is somehow more complicated, and most of those millions of records with 140+ ages do not represent fraudulent activity.
P.S. Mentioning the blue zones is incredibly silly. Those regions have modest numbers of individuals being reported in the 100-120 age range, which probably are fraudulent. None of those areas have millions being reported to be 140+. For instance, Sardinia had 13 reported centenarians per 100,000 population, which would be equivalent to ~39,000 centenarians in the US. So it's orders of magnitude less than this database shows.
contravariant|1 year ago
Whichever it is I would be very careful before making any grand public statements about it. And as far as fraud goes this doesn't sound anywhere near sophisticated.
troupo|1 year ago
This is the important missing context. Musk can and does claim a lot. He rarely, if ever, provides any evidence or context. And none of his or his team's actions can be verified or monitored.
notachatbot123|1 year ago
mmusson|1 year ago