Machines and Humans toward Augmented Intelligence (Part 7 - Final)

Will we be replaced by Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in the future? This is a million dollar question which is subject to frequent debate.

We do not believe that ML/AI will replace intelligence analysts anytime soon. Artificial intelligence is still at the initial stages of prototyping, fixing and testing all errors.  Further, there are events that ML/AI simply cannot predict (example - as described in the book “The Black Swan”. If you have only ever fed the computer with white swans, it will calculate the probability of seeing a black swan as zero…. )

On the positive side, intelligence professionals should start actively using and testing the ML that is available in order to experience it and learn to use it better as the technology evolves. Already today, ML can help analysts to skip the boring work and make them more focused and smarter. If you have smart analysts, as well as the resources to use intelligent tools, you will get the best results. However, in the future we might see particular roles being replaced. The first people that will have to go will likely be those whose roles are very task-based and lack creativity.

McKinsey Global Institute has defined a new work role that would suit intelligence professionals very well; the so called ”Business Translator”. Business Translators serve as the link between analytical talent and practical applications to business questions. In addition to being data savvy, Business Translators need to possess deep organizational knowledge and industry or functional expertise. This enables them to ask the data science team the right questions and to derive the right insights from their findings. It may be possible to outsource analytics activities, but Business Translator roles require proprietary knowledge and should be more deeply embedded into the organization”.  McKinsey estimates that there could be a need for 2-4 million Business Translators in the US alone over the next decade.

Towards Augmented Intelligence

The global economic and social systems have vastly changed in the last 10 years, and continue to digitally grow at an exponential rate. The potential for 7+ billion people in the world that could connect to billions of machines results in an unprecedented level of data the world has never seen.

The goal of any analytical effort is to leverage information and ask the right questions in order to improve business results. Now more than ever, decision makers require intelligent ways of gathering knowledge and making decisions, helping them to extract actionable intelligence from constantly evolving information.

This is where Machine Learning based intelligence systems can support by empowering users to identify information, trends and patterns that warrant attention. This new technology is more than an interesting phenomena, it is indeed a requirement. But ML will not replace intelligence professionals that ask the right questions and put information in context. Rather than replacing humans, ML will augment human intelligence and enable people to gain expertise and reach insights much, much faster than before.

This was the final installment in our series, based on the article “Machine Learning Implications for Intelligence and Insights”, written by Jesper Martell, Comintelli, and Paul Santilli, Hewlett Packard Enterprise - published in "IamSCIP" magazine, Nov'18 Edition. (www.scip.org)