Artificial Intelligence, Big Data & Quantum Computing: The Perfect Storm is Coming!

With the rise of Big Data and AI onto the main stage of 21st century business and society, we need to ask the question:

"Are we ready for all the implications of these technologies hitting the mainstream? Have we asked ourselves the question: Even though we have the ability to bring such technologies on stream, should we?"

If those who conceived of the great power of the atomic bomb or hydrogen bomb, had taken the time to consider how humanity might be changed forever by bringing them to fruition, would we be living in a different world today? Remember Robert Oppenheimer's infamous statement, as father of the atomic bomb, when he said: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds!"

Before we can answer such questions, we need to take a step back from the fast pace of the world we live in and assess exactly how influential these technologies are in the present and how rapid there rise has been. Consider the case of "Big Data".

Credit: https://quantzig.com

When you consider the characteristics of Big Data, the sheer volume of data available to be harvested per day from a variety of sources on any individual or organization who have ever had a connection to the world wide web, is staggering.

The seductive nature of what we call "Big Data" is derived from what we see as its potential to provide credible, on-time information that enables leaders to make decisions important to the success of the enterprise they are engaged in. In the 21st century, information or intelligence is the new currency.

Credit: Nasrin Hussain & Pranjal Saikia(2014)

Given the present political, economic and moral climate in the world today, this new found technological potential should prompt some very serious questions not only in regards to our privacy online but in fact to our security. Questions such as the following need to be answered:

1. Who has access to the collected data and under what conditions?
2. Can data be collected on individuals through a multitude of databases and then shared without the expressed consent of the organization or individuals concerned? A case in point that highlights this concern was a recent case involving Statistics Canada, a Canadian federal agency where Statistics Canada had taken the authority to require banks and credit companies to give them personal data on the transactions of individuals using their services.

Statistics Canada Big Data Request

Naturally, in order to be able to collect and utilize Big Data requires a more sophisticated storage and retrieval system. This calls into effect another technology that can meet this need called "the Cloud".

Credit: www.bigdataand analysis.blogspot.com

Even with improved digital infrastructure in place there has to be an efficient way of predicting, tracking and collecting Big Data from a variety of sources. Thus enters the great value of A.I. or artificial intelligence. AI coupled with the growth of the field of predictive analytics now streamlines the overall process and this produces the efficiencies needed by businesses to be able to base their decisions on the most current available global data. According to David Strom (2015), there are three principal ways that Big Data can help business:

Also, we can't forget the potential ROI that using Big Data promises:

Credit: www.datamotion.com

However, with the introduction of A.I. we are forgetting to also track its evolution as a technology. We already see the utilization of A.I. technology at such companies such as Amazon, Apple and Google and given what A.I. is presently capable of, we need to ask some very troubling questions:

"What happens if A.I. has access to global Big Data and starts to make decisions without the intervention of human programmers?"

We see instances of self-correcting A.I. technology appearing in facilities such as factories where it is the technology that keeps revising and improving on its own program. This is the evolving nature of what is termed "chat bots".

Your first response to such an idea might be that this is way in the future and why would a business organization have to worry about something like this now. But is it still in the future? Didn't we also say that this was true of drones and yet look at how they have advanced in such a short time. What happens if A.I. based upon its algorithms, which has now the ability to change and revise, decides that human input is not needed and arbitrarily acts on its own? This is referred to as reaching the "technological singularity".

In order for such a development to occur, there would need to be a dramatic change in computer technology. In truth, we are now entering that phase in a computer technology called "Quantum Computing". What exactly could we do with quantum computer technology? Imagine the scenario where someone possesses a quantum computing installation. There isn't a network in the world that he or she couldn't get into and ultimately control. Forget about previous methods of digital protections such as firewalls because at the quantum level of computing they could be taken down as if they were built of lego. Bank records and stock transfers become open books to the individual. The best encryption employed by military organizations would be broken in a few picoseconds after an initial attack. A quantum computer could analyze every piece of data hitting the net as soon as it arrives. To make this scenario even more troubling, the quantum computer would ace the "Turing Test" which means it would be able to mimic a human being in any communication form on networks.

This nightmare scenario is the thing of fiction writers or is it? Do we actually have Quantum Computer installations now? The answer to that is yes.

IBM also has established a quantum computer site which employs the DWave 2000Q and claims are being made that such computers will be able to come up with cures to diseases which is a very noble claim but my questions still stands:

"What happens when the perfect storm of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Quantum Computing meet and are we ready to make intelligent but hard decisions in regards to the technologies?"

Given the moral relativistic mindset that is pervasive in many of our societies, it is easy to rationalize these concerns away but looking at your own families, business acquaintances and close friends, could you do it?