What Can't AI Do?

One of the only lucid thought experiments ever carried out by econometricians, the "red bus-blue bus" problem illustrates a central drawback that comes with using statistical estimation to quantify the probability a person makes a specific choice when faced with several alternatives. As the thought experiment goes, imagine that you're indifferent between taking either a car or a red bus to work. Owing to your indifference, an estimate of your probability of picking either option is a coin flip. There is a 50 percent chance that you're taking the car and 50 percent that you're taking the red bus. Thus, your odds of selection are one-to-one.