Video: How We’ll Be Using Data 175 Years from Today

Data Insights with Dr. Anthony Scriffignano

As we approach the beginning of a new year, there are many predications being made on what the future holds for data and analytics. But why focus solely on 2017? Data will have enormous influence on our world for centuries to come.

Most data has become less than a commodity in that it has become essentially ubiquitous, accessible to anyone everywhere. Thus, marginalization based on access to information is all but eliminated. The data that is not readily available is highly controlled and regulated based on the users’ need, and expires immediately after use, reposed in carefully controlled national or international repositories.

Thanks to quantum computing and massive, self-defining data curation, the enormous amount of data that is created every second is carefully organized to keep this balance intact. Thus, the quest for finding data has transformed into the quest for using information to make increasingly intelligent decisions that not only benefit the human condition, but increase our awareness and understanding of the key problems facing business and society.

Artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, and relational science (the science that came from the early Internet of Things, allowing objects to discover one another and to seamlessly integrate) have improved to the point where they appear natural. New sciences, such as data synthesis (wherein data begets data and self-corrects) and relational heterogeneity (which virtually eliminated the concept of unstructured data) have combined with advances in inferential linguistics (transcending imperfect machine translation) to vastly improve what we understand and how we come to understand it.

Along the way, cyber-criminals have certainly given us a run for the money, at times taking us to the brink of unimaginably bad actions taken through data malfeasance. Fortunately, doing good has prevailed as information has been used in surprising and amazing ways to cure disease, improve the use of precious resources, and advance technologies that were unimaginable 175 years ago.

The ability to understand how we relate to one another through data has fostered the realization that we have much more in common. The amazing things that are possible using data to solve problems rather than to create new ones are fostering opportunities that continue to surprise.