from machine back to human intelligence
The question of whether machines are more supreme in intelligence than their human creators keeps on coming up to me. I remember reading an article on computers developing formula based on data so complicated that human cannot possibly recreate the logic in our minds. The researchers need to put their faith into the accuracy of the machine and use the formula without attempting to understand the process how it is derived.
In the business intelligence world, data mining ultimately leads to business decisions - marketing, merchandising, pricing, etc. A few weeks ago I was in a co-founder meetup. A speaker with financial background pitched an idea of real-time social media data crunching. He believes the same algorithm that powers machine trading can be extended to the social data mining. For any autonomous algorithm to work, the machine needs to be told what to find and what to do when the pattern fits. In trading, it might be to locate price point difference across a wide range of locations and stocks. In social media, the questions that we need the powerful machines to help to answer and eventually respond automatically to are not well defined yet. How businesses can gain competitive advantage if they recognize Jeremy Lin is the new NBA star one day earlier than everyone else? If the "formula" derived from "big data mining" is counter-intuitive, should businesses trust its value and make decision upon it anyway? By crunching a larger volume of data within a shorter period of time, are we looking to distribute a localized recognition much faster to the wider population, or are we implying that the results will be most likely surprising and even confusing to our human brain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html
The Age of Big Data
By STEVE LOHR
Published: February 11, 2012
For those who can make sense of the explosion of data, there are job opportunities in fields as diverse as crime, retail and dating.