Analytics - How Good It Really Is?

In the last few years, big data has become a reality. With big data, comes the analytics to make sense of the big data. Today, there are many tools to analyze, conclude and predict based on big data. I finally managed to read Dean Drako's great article on Big Data that he presented at DAC last year. This month's IEEE Spectrum had a great article on how AirBnb has launched their new analytics platform for predicting the value of a rental as conditions change dynamically. This all leads to one question - Is analytics making the world a scarier place? 

There is a documented case of how Target got to know of a girl's pregnancy before her father did by using analytics on her buying pattern. In his paper, Dean predicts that doctors may become obsolete to data and analytics in the future as they wont be able to compete the knowledge from millions of cases of the disease. For AirBnb, they could suggest higher rents for places where the owner would not have realized the value. I think even though these stories are scary, this is the new world that we will be living in. With analytics, insurance companies can dynamically adjust your insurance rates. Dynamic pricing could work both ways in a supermarket where you may be rewarded for going at odd times to shop. We have to embrace this technology and use it find more ways to optimize our lives. In this process, some of the arbitrage that we have enjoyed so far may get removed, but the true value will be highlighted. Moreover, this will change people's daily habits and force them to act in some ways they would have never thought. Again, I dont have all the analytics to predict the future :). Any comments you have are welcome.