# 0step ahead prediction

**URL:** <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/0step-ahead-prediction/1670>\
**Category:** NuPIC\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [December 14, 2016, 8:22am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/0step-ahead-prediction/1670 "2016-12-14T08:22:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![masajirv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@masajirv](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/masajirv)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 8:22am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/0step-ahead-prediction/1670/1 "2016-12-14T08:22:21Z")

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Hi, I’m japanese student. I’m interested in time series data analysis with NuPIC.  
So, I have installed NuPIC and tried running hotgym example. It’s amazing!

So far,I’m running hotgym example with various"predictionSteps"(2stepahead,4stepahead,…).  
In my results, as predictionSteps is far as the result is bad.(at this point “bad” meaning that error of the predicted value and true value is big. ) I can understand this. I think far ahead prediction is difficult.

But when I tried 0step ahead prediction, the result is bad. Why is this?  
Is’nt HTM good at predicting 0step ahead?

Sorry for my poor English. Thanks.

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**Author:** ![cogmission](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/cogmission/32/11_2.png) [@cogmission](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/cogmission)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 9:39am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/0step-ahead-prediction/1670/2 "2016-12-14T09:39:24Z")

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Hi,

I’m kind of interested in this question also, it seems that predicting 0 steps ahead is meaningless and probably shouldn’t be allowed? (Predicting what already happened - i.e. The present??)

@masajirv 1 step is normal operation and is the default (predicting what will happen next).

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**Author:** ![rhyolight](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/rhyolight/32/3922_2.png) [@rhyolight](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/rhyolight)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/0step-ahead-prediction/1670/3 "2016-12-14T15:28:53Z")

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David is right. Since we are almost always dealing with time snapshots, a “0-step ahead” prediction means “the data point just seen”. So getting a prediction for _now_ is only possible by using a previous inference from a timestep in the past that looked ahead to this point in time. But I’m not sure why that would be useful.

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**Author:** ![cogmission](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/cogmission/32/11_2.png) [@cogmission](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/cogmission)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/0step-ahead-prediction/1670/4 "2016-12-14T17:11:50Z")

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@rhyolight I’m wondering if an exception should be thrown if the classifier receives “0” as a configuration?