Tricia Wang : The human insights missing from big data

                                 

TED 2016

Tricia Wang : The human insights missing from big data (transcript)

Summary

I heard the words that are a thick data for the first time and I thought that it'd come from a thick description. It means in the fields of some study, descriptions should explain about a human behavior by not only its action but its context, because the behavior becomes meaningful to an outsider.

Even nowadays, it is difficult to predict something about human behavior because conditions are constantly changing and new factors emerge one after another. The actions of people are unquantifiable insights though there are precious.  

However, its data started to be collected by helping algorithm. It's called the thick data.

Big data is a famous term. Many companies use it for spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on. This is something they can't do without, but they might depend too much on it. They make bad decisions, even with access to understand amounts of data.  

The speaker tells us that integrating the big data and the thick data to make better outputs and better decisions. "This is how we'll avoid missing something, " she said, I think that we have to change our thought.

All data is not perfect and human action is not focused like the statistics of rolling dice. It's because we are more multifaceted and our behavior conditions are constantly changing.

Words in this story

quantifiable /adjective/ capable of being measured or described as a quantity

quantifiably /adverb/   quantification /noun/

integrate / combine (one thing) with another so that they become a whole.  combine, amalgamate, merge, unite

multifaceted / having many facets.

emerge /  come out, appear, move out of or away from something and come into view.

insight /  the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.