Data Science In Our Daily Lives

Data science, whether we like it or not, is all around us. Data scientists are not the only people to work with data science, albeit most people do indirectly. Many people do not realize the scope of data science and the technologies that utilize it. In fact, Google, the search engine you probably used to get here, is powered by artificial intelligence. As a result, data science is deeply integrated in the technology and entertainment sectors.

As I mentioned before, search engines like Google use data science in their systems. All the search engines you know (Bing, Yahoo, AOL, Google, etc.) use data science and machine learning algorithms to improve search results and the user experience. Advanced AI algorithms allow Google results to be displayed in milliseconds. In addition, Google and the ecommerce sites it hosts use AI for targeted marketing. They process the data collected from you and your search history and then present relevant ads. Online shopping websites use patterns in your shopping to predict what you will buy next, and then market those products. These algorithms can be scarily accurate. You might remember from a previous blog I wrote that Target used a targeted marketing algorithm and it ended up predicting when a person was pregnant. Furthermore, data science is also used when predicting fraud. Credit card companies can use your previous purchases and profile to predict whether or not it was actually you buying a product. As a result, they can stop fraud and prevent the loss of the customer's money.

Data science is also heavily used in entertainment. An estimated 203 million people worldwide use Netflix to watch TV shows and movies. You've probably used Netflix, too. Do you ever wonder how Netflix knows what to recommend you, or how it can tell whether a series is a match for you or not? You might think they just check the shows that you have watched and liked, but it goes much deeper than that. Netflix uses data science and complex machine learning algorithms to present your feed and recommendations. They predict the shows you will like using in depth algorithms on the content you watched, rather than just a genre. In addition, your feed will continue to improve as you use Netflix more and more, as the machine learning algorithms will pick up more data on you and what you have watched. Furthermore, artificial intelligence has become a staple in new video games. Have you ever wondered how NPCs (non-player characters) know what to do, or how they sometimes act as another human player? Well, those games likely use machine learning algorithms that tell the NPC what to do. A perfect example of this can be seen in Chess. Chess bots are infamous for using machine learning algorithms that can beat even the world's best. This culminated in the 1997 match between Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov, although that is for another day. Today, AI can be seen in FIFA, Call Of Duty, and other popular games. In conclusion, data science and artificial intelligence have widespread impacts on different industries. In some cases, they make up the backbone of the industry, and allow it to prosper. As a result, data science is all around us, and will only continue to grow. Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-of-netflix-streaming-subscribers-worldwide/

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