

The data singularity is here  - ypavan
http://dataspora.com/blog/the-data-singularity-is-here/

======
dustingetz
" _In a nutshell, the Data Singularity is this: humans are being spliced out
of the data-driven processes around us, and frequently we aren’t even at the
terminal node of action. International cargo shipments, high-frequency stock
trades, and genetic diagnoses are all made without us._ "

I rather think automating mundane tasks is a good thing, because it frees us
up to focus on innovative and creative opportunities. Jack Bauer operates at
the speed of thought, because his tools take care of details irrelevant to
him. IMO the data singularity exists, but it will shepard in the age of the
exceptional individual. Startups (with HLLs) foreshadow this outcome.

~~~
fnid2
HLLs? The best I can get from a search is Heritage Learner.

But I agree, I think the startups who are good at managing lots of data,
especially _new_ data, extremely quickly will succeed.

~~~
omaranto
My guess is High Level Languages.

------
khafra
Robin Hanson's latest talk* contends that automation is a complement, rather
than a replacement, for human work; and that this holds true even when
automation gets smarter.

* <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/03/econ-of-nano-ai.html>

~~~
warfangle
I believe when the singularity hits, it won't be in the idea of a smarter
machine making smarter machines.

It will be in decreasing communication lag-time and interoperability between
/people/ asymptotically to nil.

We will still be individuals, but we will be tied inexorably to not only each
other, but the vast amount of data stored on the internet.

What makes us /think/ better, however, is speed and utility of communication.
What helps us /remember/ better is the speed and utility of information
retrieval.

The latter has been increasing faster than the former. We need fundamentally
gigantic changes in human-computer-human communication to affect the former.
The first of these was the internet, of course. What we've been doing with it
since its inception are comparative baby-steps - someday, perhaps soon, there
will be a leap just as big as the Internet is.

And it will be fundamentally destabilizing to everything we know as society
today.

------
zackham
The article seems to focus on the big picture of log files of services that
are all interconnected in some way... this makes for the most impressive
mental picture perhaps, forming "the tributaries feeding an ocean of data in
the Cloud"; however, the exponential decrease in cost of computing power, data
storage, and bandwidth has this effect on any information that we can
digitize. Some of the most interesting developments will likely be in more or
less isolated fields. I am excited to see the interplay between field-specific
developments (finding patterns in a genome) and broader algorithmic work
(finding patterns in any data). I suppose this is already happening, but it
will become increasingly visible to laymen over time.

------
ippisl
I'm not sure the singularity would make the change much faster. because in
most industries the barriers to change are things like capital , time to test
, and various human factors like risk aversion , politics , etc...

So change will be somewhat faster. The biggest difference will be higher level
of machines taking people jobs , but we already have this. this will just
increase.

------
nazgulnarsil
they said the same things about auto-pilot and its interaction with ground
control years ago.

