Ted Talks-BIG Data is Better by Kenneth Cukier

What is the future of BIG Data- driven technology and design? What is next for machine learning?

Kenneth starts off by making it apparent that having more data allows us to see new, better and different things.

BIG data as an extremely important new tool by which society is going to advance.

He states that in the past we as humans used to look at small data to try and understand the world, BUT now we have more data than ever before. Having a large body of data enables us to do things that we could not do when we only had access to the small data such as addressing global challenges like feeding people, providing medical care, supplying energy/electricity and dealing with the effects of Global Warming.

Kenneth then went onto talk about our ancestors and the way they recorded data in history, and makes it apparent that how we used to record data in the past has not changed all that much. He uses the example of an ancient heavy clay disc (2000bc) that was found with inscriptions en-carved into the clay that were unchangeable. He states that data is a fluid dynamic and can be seen as the liquidity of information, and today a huge amount of data can be stored onto something so small like the size of a fingernail and can be shared at the speed of light. Searching for data has become much easier as well as sharing, copying and processing it, which allows us to re-use the information for uses that we could never of even imagined from when we first collected the data. Databases record and store information which can create ‘fingerprints’ creating aggregate data in which predictions can be made. BIG data is valuable because its allowing us to have access to information to do things we could not do before.

The term Machine Learning is when data is thrown at a computer and is left for it to make sense of it by itself this is also know as Artificial  Intelligence. In the 1950’s Arthur Samuel who worked for IBM was very fond of the game checkers and decided to write  a program which enabled him to play against the computer. Every time he played against the computer he won and kept winning, due to the fact the computer only knew what a legal move was but Arthur Samuel knew the strategy behind the game. He then went on to write a small sub program that would  operate in the background of the existing program he initially created. The sub Program was used to score the probability of who would win, and Arthur Samuel continued to play, but he was still winning every time he played the program. He then decided to stop playing and allowed the program to play itself, which then enabled it to collect more data which resulted in an increased accuracy of its predictions. Arthur Samuel goes back to play with the program and he lost the game, he played again and again and the same result happened in the fact he kept loosing to the program. Arthur Samuel created a machine that surpasses his ability in a task that he taught it.

The machine learning idea is everywhere and is at the basis of what we do online, for example voice recognition, computer translation, location services, search engines and Amazon’s personalisation algorithms. Kenneth Cukier gives another example of machine learning within cancerous biopsies for breast cancer. The computer was given data and survival rate statistics to identify and to determine if the cells was cancerous or not. The machine identified 12 top signs that could be seen to know if the cells were cancerous or not. However a problem surfaced in the fact that the medical literature they had only spoke about 9 top signs, resulting in the fact the computer spotted 3 more signs that the scientists were not aware of.

Kenneth Cukier then went onto saying that BIG Data is good but there is a bad side to it. He says that we should be aware that people may be punished for prediction, for example the police may use BIG data for their own purposes a lot like the film Minority Report. This term is called prediction policing also know as algorithmic criminology. This is the idea of taking a large amount of data like places of where past crimes have been committed so they know where to send patrols, however this data will not just involve location data but also data about the individual such as education, credit scores, web surfing behavior, employment history, sleeping patterns.  Biochemistry uses data to study chemical processes through algorithms that affect us as humans such as aggressive thoughts. We could have algorithms  that predict what we are about to do and we may be held accountable before we actually do anything.

Cukier states that in the small data era, privacy was the essential challenge, but now in the BIG data age we are faced with a new challenge, according to K.Cukier and that is safeguarding free will, world choice, human volition, human agency. He also suggests another problem with BIG data is the fact it can steal our jobs. BIG data and Algorithms are going to challenge white collar professional work in the 21st century in the same way that factory automation and assembly line challenged blue collar labor in the 20th century resulting in peoples jobs changing and the elimination of jobs. It is assumed that technology creates jobs over a period of time after a short temporary period of dislocation just like the industrial revolution, however there are some jobs that never returned.

Cukier advises us that we must be careful with the use of BIG data by adjusting it to fit our human needs, we have to be the master of this technology and not a servant, we are just an outset of the big data era. Cukier also states that we as individuals are not that good at handling all the data that we now can collect, which is not just a problem for National Security agents. Businesses also collect lots of data & misuse it too, he believes that we need to get better but this takes time, BIG data is a tool, however if we are not intelligent enough to use in the correct way it can burn us!

BIG data transforms how we live , work and think, it can help to manage careers, lead lives of satisfaction, hope, happiness and health. Cukier goes onto say that in the past we often looked at information technology as just the physical aspect of the technology, we now need to look at the information which is less apparent but in some ways a lot more important.

Lastly, Cukier believes humanity can finally learn from this information that it can collect as part of the timeless quest to understand the world and our place in it.

BIG data is a big deal!!!