One of the most notable new technologies of this age is machine learning (ML). This a machine’s ability to keep improving its performance without humans specifically telling it how to further develop it capabilities (Brynjolfsson & Mcafee, 2017). Machine learning practices are opening opportunities for many different markets. In the transport industry, self-driving cars will dominate the scene within ten years. Likewise, houses, factories and cars will be full of sensors. These sensors will register an enormous amount of data which will be sent to the cloud to be combined with other data parts and analysed. For example, cars will be able to communicate with each other to predict traffic jams beforehand and prevent them from happening. Artificial intelligence will also have its impact in the financial world where learning algorithms can be able to predict the chance someone can pay back his mortgage.
There seem to be a lot of opportunities and possible positive applications of machine learning practices. However, some factors still need to be accounted for to allow this new technology to become widely used.
Machine learning developments are expected to increase exponentially, however the firms are complaining the job market is not ready for it. Real data scientists are scarce and desperately searched for by companies (Financieel dagblad, 2015). Moreover, there are huge privacy concerns with the aggregation with large sums of data storable on the cloud. For example, concerning the health care industry, insurers could find out if their clients run the risk for some diseases and refuse to insure them.
These two problems remain still unsolved. It is noteworthy that statisticians and econometrists can still study without being able to program in SQL or R, thus lacking the skills to become the data scientists that companies are looking for. Also the privacy concerns remains unsolved, could block chain be a solution?
In general we like the stress the opportunities when talking about new technologies, however, the possible threats should not be neglected.
Brynjolfsson, E. and McAfee, A. 2017. The Business of Artificial Intelligence. Harvard Business Review.
https://fd.nl/fd-outlook/1120278/deep-learning-maakt-ons-bestaan-smarter-en-kwetsbaarder
