We’ve got to the stage where we take intelligent machines for granted. We trust them to carry out complex tasks requiring extreme precision, speed, and accuracy – from pacemakers to auto-pilots.
Machine learning algorithms are evolving in every industry - translating text, identifying faces in photographs, recognising handwriting, piloting drones, driving cars, and so on. And now, machine learning is moving into social, education, and medicine - diverse areas like predicting which participants will drop out of drug-trials and improving selection processes in recruitment.
In fact, machine learning supports every single aspect of decision making whether that’s strategic, tactical, financial, or another facet of our day-to-day lives.
Focusing on the facts
And speaking of improving the recruitment process, the National Bureau of Economic Research wanted to find out if experienced recruiters and hiring managers could be outperformed by machines. A study of 15 companies concluded that - for low-skilled service jobs - the algorithm’s selection of employees resulted in a retention rate that was 15 percent higher than the human recruiters’ rate.
Where there are clear success criteria such as employee tenure, utilisation, and performance, the case for using machine learning is proven. The problem with recruitment professionals is that they select candidates who are similar to themselves; people they feel they’d get along with socially. The machine has no such bias and focuses exclusively on the hard targets and objectives.
A fresh look at industry
In addition to helping with traditional problems like recruitment, machine learning is enabling new business models for old industries - manufacturing cars, for example. Sensor technology now provides ultimate control over every aspect of the vehicle and its environment, collecting millions of sensor readings that are digested continuously. This is more than any human could ever do. And as vehicles become more sophisticated (navigating complex environments, predicting maintenance issues, etc.) completely autonomous driving moves a step nearer.
It’s a prime example of machines learning from traffic patterns, sensor readings, and road conditions, to get smarter, faster.
So the question is, augment or replace?
With machines in play, we might reasonably conclude that human blind spots, our biases and subjective judgements, will soon be eliminated from the decision-making process. In reality, big data contains the self-same blind spots and biases that impair human judgement because we introduce our own biased data into the algorithms we design.
So, it’s less a case of man versus machine. It’s more like a partnership; man and machine. As we get a better handle on the world around us (understanding more about the business domain), we have a better chance of correcting any inadvertent biases.
Working together
The importance of the partnership is demonstrated by the fact that machine learning centres on its ability to learn from human inputs (to train models, predict outcomes and make decisions). Crucially, machines can’t ask the most important question: “Why?”. But, as interfaces to the machine, we can.
And it’s our responsibility to determine what data best serves the machine - how to cleanse and prepare that data, ensuring it represents the past while remaining relevant to the future. Consequently, machines will not eliminate human intervention in decision making. Machines will simply change the nature and timing of our intervention.
Arguably, a machine self-learns so that the algorithms can predict accurately. However, final decisions have to be taken by living, breathing, empathetic entities. On their own, analytics cannot deliver the fine-tuned decisions we crave. Human context - the ability to weigh-up the full implications of a decision - is an integral part of the process. Clearly, man and machine have to work together.
Action and reaction
In the future (with increasing dependence on machine learning), employees having adequate training to become machine interfaces will be our greatest business challenge. Without this kind of interface, machine intelligence will be lost. So, in spite of the fact that machines will be creating the intelligence, humans will still be responsible for actions taken and outcomes delivered.
We will be the orchestrators. Machines will do the heavy lifting - processing vast amounts of data to help us make intuitive and well-informed decisions, while allowing us the time and space to be more creative; more innovative.
It’s the perfect environment for developing new business models, products, and services – activities better suited to the human mind.
A strategist and change leader, Yasmeen Ahmad has worked on executive teams with focus on defining and leading strategy, driving priorities with a sense of urgency and leading cross-functional initiatives. Yasmeen has held roles including VP of Enterprise Analytics, Head of Global Communications and Chief of Staff to a CEO. Her creativity, ideas and execution have supported organizations to move quickly to deliver on key transformation objectives, including pivots to analytics, as-a-service, subscription and cloud.
Yasmeen is a strong communicator, well versed in connecting business and technical disciplines. Her keynote presentations, articles and published materials are demonstration of her thought leadership and ability to simplify complex concepts. She is regarded as an expert in the enterprise data and analytics domain, having successfully consulted to deliver multi-million dollars of value within Fortune 500 companies. Yasmeen leads with a passion for being customer obsessed and outcome focused. A strong people leader, Yasmeen has driven change management and people initiatives to foster a culture of growth and continuous improvement. Yasmeen is a strong proponent for transparency, diversity, inclusiveness and authentic leadership.
Yasmeen has a PhD in Life Sciences from the Wellcome Trust Centre in Gene Regulation and Expression and has studied on executive programs related to Disruptive Innovative and Strategic IQ at Harvard Business School. Yasmeen has been named as one of the top 50 data leaders and influencers by Information Age and Data Scientist of the Year by Computing magazine, as well as being nominated as a Finalist for Innovator of the Year in the Women in IT Awards. Finally, Yasmeen is part of the exclusive Executive Development Program at Teradata.
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