Machine Learning: The Future, Get It?

December 29, 2014

I enjoyed “The Future Is Machine Learning, Not Programs or Processes.” I am down with the assertion, but I did chuckle. The machine learning systems described in my new monograph “CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access” (available in early 2015) are composed of programs and processes.

The article does not really mean that machine learning exists as an island, which John Donne correctly pointed out, is not an ideal situation for reasonably intelligent clergyman to seek.

The write up states:

Why do I then say that the future of BPM is in this obscure AI arena? First, machine learning is not about beating humans at some task. And second, I see machine learning ideal for work that can’t be simply automated. My well-documented opposition in this blog to orthodox BPM is caused by the BPM expert illusion that a business and the economy are designed, rational structures of money and things that can be automated. In reality they are social interactions of people that can never be encoded in diagrams or algorithms. I have shown that machine learning can augment the human ability to understand complex situations and improve decision making and knowledge sharing.

I also noted the reference to IBM Watson, one of my favorite touch points for the usefulness of open source software applied to the creation of recipes for barbeque sauce. Tamarind? Why didn’t my local BBQ joint think of that? Here in Kentucky, the humans at Texican just use bourbon. No imagination?

The write up invokes Google but omits Google’s investment in Recorded Future. I find that interesting because Recorded Future is one of the more important companies in the NGIA market.

The article concludes:

We are just at the starting point of using machine learning for process management. IT and business management are mostly not ready for such advanced approaches because they lack the understanding of the underlying technology. We see it as our goal to dramatically reduce the friction, as Sankar calls it, between the human and the machine learning computer. Using these technologies has to become intuitive and natural. The ultimate benefit is an increase in the quality of the workforce and thus in customer service.

There you go. The future.

Stephen E Arnold, December 29, 2014

Comments

One Response to “Machine Learning: The Future, Get It?”

  1. Max Pucher on December 29th, 2014 9:13 am

    Thanks for reading and commenting on my post. Your tongue in cheek review is however somewhat meaningless.

    We use machine learning successfully for over 15 years in ever advancing ways. The most recent one to identify how humans react to certain process situations. In that respect ML is not just the future, but it is here and is being used.

    It is the future in respect to the benefits that it brings in comparison to hardcoding program logic to do the same or to define business processes to control people. It is the future in terms of broad use because currently business managers are too scared to do something in this arena, not because it does not work.

    Recorded future is not ML from my perspective. I do not agree that Recorded Future has anything of value at hand and clearly we can agree to disagree. Predicting general world events works much better using Astrology or economists. They are on the same level of accuracy. In the end their is no benefit in general prediction. You can even read that in the Bible. 😉

    Thanks again and all the best, Max

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