DATA-ISM

It has been a while since I've shared the book that i'm reading. My first book for this year is Data-ism : Inside the Big Data Revolution by Steven Lohr who is a technology reporter for the New York Times. Two interesting points I would like to highlight here :

1. In 1960, J.C.R Licklider, a psychologist and seminal thinker in computing wrote in 'Man-Computer Symbiosis', stated that the appropriate goal of computing was to "augment" human intelligence rather than substituting for it. But in 2011, David Ferucci and IBM research team created the supercomputer Watson and beat the all time Jeopardy! champion, Ken Jennings;  and in 1997, Joel Benjamin a chess grandmaster helped IBM research team to build Deep Blue Computer to beat Gary Kasparov, a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion and whom many consider to be the greatest chess player of all time.

This suggests the Licklider vision has been flipped, it's actually computer that is ''augmented'' by humans.

2. A software program developed by IBM called KnowMe can analyse 200 tweets of a person and it will be 81% pretty much matched the results of their formal standardised tests for personality type, basic values and needs.

In summary, big data revolution is coming and those who are taking advantage of it will benefit. Besides the controversy issues of privacy and policy changes, no doubt big data will change the way we make decisions. Hopefully we will be more accurate in making key decision that will have great implications and impact on our lives, as long as we do not exclude the human elements such as intuitions and experience. Our future society will be the evidence-based society who will celebrate truth based on data analysis especially in medicine, economy and policy making.