You’d be forgiven for feeling a little jittery about a world economy is driven first and foremost by data. As news headlines regularly confirm, we’re climbing a pretty steep learning curve right now, and lots of people are worried about how safe their data is once it’s floating around “out there.”
But the truth is that big data stands a good chance of reviving and even completely remaking the global economy. It’s true that the world’s cryptographers have yet to build hackproof encryption and the internet itself might be due for an upgrade, but data is here to stay ” and the global economy won’t be the same after we get a better handle on storing and managing it. Here’s a quick look at what that world could look like in a data-driven economy.
Data Is the Lifeblood of the Global Economy
When most of us think about the collection of big data, we usually think about marketing first. It seems like the only purpose of amassing data is to more effectively part consumers from their money ” right?
Not so fast. Data is the lifeblood of the modern global economy for far more reasons than its usefulness in targeting marketing content to consumers. Big data is also essential for anticipating problems, studying patterns and trends, more efficiently using finite resources, producing no more of a product that is needed at a given time and so on. Data is going to help us know more about the world, our place in it and what we want out of it than we’ve ever known before. Scary? Perhaps ” but the potential is breathtaking and empowering.
Data powers all of these capabilities. As it makes us more connected, we’ll be able to empirically solve problems, which were heretofore only tackled with rhetoric and trial-and-error. Big data could help us solve some of our most pressing problems and could help us recover from some of our most severe disasters.
Anticipating Change, Rebuilding After Disaster
Success in life is about what you know ” and data helps us understand quite a bit. But all the information in the world is virtually useless unless we can collate and study it. We have to make it actionable. It has to solve a problem.
A big part of data science concerns the study of patterns. Increasingly, human beings aren’t the ones studying those patterns. For example, computer algorithms can now improve their “knowledge” through a process called machine learning, which itself is little more than data collection with a goal in mind. Smartphone manufacturers leverage machine learning to predict which applications a user will reach for next and which paid services might appeal to them.
But machine learning powered by big data can also perform far more significant feats, such as translating speech in real-time. What is language if not audible data patterns? Human translators might never go out of style, but it’s clear that machines and their ever-broader horizons will continue to make our world smaller and enhance our communication. Collaboration in business, government, scientific research and every other consequential field can only move as fast as communication, after all.
Consider the benefits of eliminating the barrier language from international business and geopolitical relations. Imagine what could happen if human beings, with their whims and their whining, begin to use machine learning to better distribute the world’s most valuable resources, such as food and potable water?
According to some estimates, the world could sustain several billion more human beings if we all consumed natural resources at the rate that the average Ugandan does. That might be a pipe dream, but reality won’t be far off. Data will give us the means to better understand how human activity, including commerce, land development, and resource extraction contribute to our influence on planet earth.
From the ground up, the economy as we know it will run cleaner and leaner. We’ll do more with less and, consequently, we’ll have more of ourselves and our assets to give back to the world.
It’s also likely that big data will help us better anticipate and respond to natural disasters and even manage the flow of migrants, refugees and immigrants. Everything about our modern infrastructure will be better able to meet humankind’s ever-changing needs ” and balance those needs with the well-being of the planet.
Big Data Is Big (and Small) Business
A little closer to home, it’s likely that the near future will see businesses of all sizes empowered and primed for success like never before. From the smallest e-commerce venture to the biggest of big-box stores, there’s no audience too small for big data. Even something seemingly trivial, like which products your most ambivalent customers leave in their shopping cart the longest, is a data point which could yield a return ” if you know what to look for and what to do with the information you get.
Big data isn’t just about the data ” it’s also about having a place to put it all, organize it and then being able to make sense of it. After it revolutionizes the way your small business operates, it might just change the world.
