human action data

Human actions more important than ever with historically high volumes of data

IDC predicts that our global datasphere: the digital data we create, capture, replicate and consume, will grow from approximately 40 zettabytes of data in 2019 to 175 zettabytes in 2025, and that 60% of this data will be managed by enterprises.

To both manage and make use of this near-future data deluge, enterprise organizations will increasingly rely on machine learning and AI. But IDC Research Director Chandana Gopal says this doesn’t mean that the importance of humans in deriving insights and decision making will decrease. In fact, the opposite is true.

'As volumes of data increase, it becomes vitally important to ensure that decision makers understand the context and trust the data and the insights that are being generated by AI/ML, sometimes referred to as thick data', says Gopal in 10 Enterprise Analytics Trends to Watch in 2020.

In an AI automation framework published by IDC, we state that it is important to evaluate the interaction of humans and machines by asking the following three questions:

  1. Who analyzes the data?
  2. Who decides based on the results of the analysis?
  3. Who acts based on the decision?

'The answers to the three questions above will guide businesses towards their goal of maximizing the use of data and augmenting the capabilities of humans in effective decision making. There is no doubt that machines are better suited to finding patterns and correlations in vast quantities of data. However, as it is famously said, correlation does not imply causation, and it is up to the human (augmented with ML) to determine why a certain pattern might occur'.

Training employees to become data literate and conversant with data ethnography should be part of every enterprise organization’s data strategy in 2020 and beyond, advises Gopal. As more and more decisions are informed and made by machines, it’s vital that humans understand the how and why.

Author: Tricia Morris

Source: Microstrategy