Data is for the masses

Data is the new currency, so let’s start spending it!

I think we’re all starting to understand the importance of data both within the technology industry and increasingly the role it plays in our everyday lives. Within a short period of time whole industries within IT have sprung up around data farming, think of these as data centers, and data mining, most commonly associated with crypto currencies. In both cases i.e. mining and farming, their application goes way beyond the obvious and touches our lives in ways we can’t even imagine.

These industry trends have given rise to new career opportunities for IT professionals. Data modeling has been with us for as long as commercial applications have existed, however the increased power of the internet has given rise to the data analyst and data scientist. The analyst making sense of existing data, of which more and more becoming available, in no small part due to the data scientist, who devises new ways of collecting data to be used in analytical models.

These industry and career trends have ultimately culminated in the most recent hot topics of Machine (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) within Artificial Intelligence (AI). ML might be thought of in terms of the algorithms that are (re)written (feature extraction) on Wall Street to improve trading strategies based on their exposure to more data over time. DL may be thought of as a subset of ML in which layered networks of data provide even greater insight; generally not requiring nearly as much human intervention for feature extraction i.e. less need for computer programmers. Artificial Intelligence is the over arching discipline to DL and ML, able to sense, seemingly reason, act and adapt on data insights.

All of this is wonderful to talk about and in many respects has been in existence for almost as long as the IT industry itself, but none of it would be possible without the explosion in data availability i.e. Big Data. But what does this mean to us, the common person?

You Are Big Data

Be under no illusions: all of these trends described above are made possible by you, your actions and your willingness to give your data away, often without your permission or knowledge.

While these trends have given rise to exciting new technologies such as the driverless car, they have also fueled more nefarious events such as voter coercion. Also corporations are able to operate more efficiently due to things such as predictive modeling in their supply chain, but how does that benefit you? Are you willingly giving up all your data just to reduce the need for a drivers license or having a constant supply of your favorite soda? Is widespread misinformation a price worth paying?

Data is Money

In my relatively short period back in the IT industry at the Flatiron School I have worked on enough projects that clearly illustrate that data is money, as I always suspected. It has shown me that technology, even in the hands of relative novices (albeit highly intelligent ones), can expose the value of data to our everyday lives. This also shows how changing the ways we live our everyday lives can change the data. But we need the data of everyday life to do that.

Economic groups of interest

It is possible, with the right technologies, for people to organize themselves into economic groups of interest to tackle seemingly intractable problems; besides we do something similar today when we join a group on FaceBook. Granted, while FaceBook is not generally used for solving intractable problems, it certainly together around a certain topic which moves the needle. And FaceBook doesn’t seem to be hurting last I checked. So we can address weightier issues in coming together, all that needs to change are the tools and the data. Perhaps our attitudes may need to evolve a little also.

A whole new economy based on data spend

I envision an entirely restructured economy in which people can come together around actionable information and leverage their actions, and its resulting data, to achieve social and economic goals.

As a very small data point, a fellow cohort member and I saw very quickly what one discovers when we investigated the freely available information on political campaign contributions. We only downloaded a small amount of data from an API into a JSON file with a React front-end. Imagine if we could make that information available in the right way, to people who cared, at the point of purchase. I wonder how that might move the needle?

This and other data points has provided a belief that data applications for the person in the street are within touching distance. Besides, most technologists are progressive in their thinking and want to make the world a better place for us all, and not just the few.

Imagine a Data Wallet application in which you could carry your data (transactions, clicks, hovers, phone calls etc.) just as if it were money, and you could choose to share it with organizations who shared your values with respect to climate change. They in turn could use your data in their AI systems to help perhaps fight global warming.

What if we could use data in the building of applications to fight income inequality, soaring medical debt, drug addiction or even racism.

Just imagine.

links:

Artificial Intelligence vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning

What’s The Difference Between A Mining Farm and a Data Farm?