Big Brother is Watching You
"Yes, it's a magnificent time to know math." says a long article in Business Week . I have a fascination with maths, love it, but concede that not everyone does. However it is worth even non maths readers looking at this article. I know many TW readers are concerned with the privacy issue, and this article may bring home to you why we need be concerned, as data mining ramps up a notch. Anyway it could be bye-bye MBA and hello M.Math
A generation ago, quants turned finance upside down. Now they're mapping out ad campaigns and building new businesses from mountains of personal data
"Quants", "polytopes" and how they mine data are covered
This mathematical modeling of humanity promises to be one of the great undertakings of the 21st century. It will grow in scope to include much of the physical world as mathematicians get their hands on new flows of data, from atmospheric sensors to the feeds from millions of security cameras. It's a parallel world that's taking shape, a laboratory for innovation and discovery composed of numbers, vectors, and algorithms
The article covers in broad terms how they try to build workable models from the data that is acquired, and not just from the web.
Math's other problem? Sometimes it's just not as smart as advertised. As mathematicians expand their domain into the humanities, they're working with new data, much of it untested. "It's very possible for people to misplace faith in numbers," says Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google. The antidote at Google and elsewhere is to put mathematicians on teams with specialists from other disciplines, including the social sciences.
The ability of businesses to interpret the data is questioned, and the obvious conclusion pointed out.
"Now it's easier for people to bamboozle someone by having analysis based on lots of data and graphs," says Paul C. Pfleiderer, a finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "We have to train people in business to spot a bogus argument."
Jobs for everyone in that field.