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What are some examples when false positive has proven important than false negative?

Answer»

Before citing instances, LET us understand what are false positives and false negatives.

  • False Positives are those cases that were wrongly identified as an event even if they were not. They are called Type I errors.
  • False Negatives are those cases that were wrongly identified as non-events despite being an event. They are called Type II errors.

Some examples where false positives were important than false negatives are:

  • In the medical field: Consider that a lab report has predicted cancer to a patient even if he did not have cancer. This is an example of a false positive error. It is dangerous to start chemotherapy for that patient as he doesn’t have cancer as starting chemotherapy would lead to damage of healthy cells and might even actually lead to cancer.
  • In the e-commerce field: Suppose a company DECIDES to start a campaign where they GIVE $100 gift vouchers for purchasing $10000 worth of items without any minimum purchase conditions. They ASSUME it would result in at least 20% profit for items sold above $10000. What if the vouchers are given to the customers who haven’t purchased anything but have been mistakenly marked as those who purchased $10000 worth of products. This is the case of false-positive error.


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