Humans are diverse, complicated, and often un-calculated. Computers are our antithesis. Yet we unceasingly try to meld our worlds into one. Susan Etlinger in her TED talk "What do we do with all this big data?" argues an interesting point. She claims as we have more statistical and numerical representation of reality we are not getting closer to the truth. We don't know why people stop smoking, or what causes actually causes cancer, or what in our genes makes us behave differently. We quantify things, but don't know how to critically think about them yet. I believe technology can be harnessed to unveil problems and build solutions, but the human element is still critical. Etlinger argues this same point by emphasizing the necessity to critically think about our big data. The data is only numbers until we make it something more, but if we make it the wrong "more", it is useless just the same.
What do we do with all this big data?
That is an interesting point. Data without proper application is just numbers. I think that in computer science though, it's just part of the way our minds work. We want to measure and quantify things to see if we can find patterns. I think it's half the fun.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the human element is crucial. Every person is unique and so has their own circumstances. These can't all be accounted for as a part of big data, but maybe we'll find a way to factor them in.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. When you get down to it, computers do the tedious things that we used to have to do. Even as things get larger and more complicated you may be able to boil it down to that. But conclusions and analysis of findings are still dominated by human intelligence
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