Big data to make well-paid jobs redundant
Daumsoft vice president predicts future of data-driven society
Will human lawyers, doctors and pharmacists still exist in the Fourth Industrial Revolution?
Daumsoft Vice President Song Kil-young was pessimistic about the future of the most popular jobs in this country.
“People will want to save as much return as possible from their investments,” he said during a recent interview with The Korea Times in Seoul. “Those who are paid well will lose their jobs much faster than low-income earners.”
Song, who also serves as the vice chairman of the Korea Business Intelligence Data Mining Society, is one of the nation’s most renowned experts i n big data analysis.
He has tried to let the public know how big data will be used in the real world.
“Data will allow machines to make their own decisions in the future,” he said. “Doctors already trust in the Google search engine more than pharmacopoeia. In fact, a person’s total amount of knowledge is not that big, compared to machines.”
Although he predicted the emergence of the new sector of industry with a relatively lower cost-benefit ratio and higher complexity, he said it cannot eliminate unemployment, citing the Luddites in the 19th century as an example.
“Textile workers and weavers in the 19th century were actually the high-income class, because of their skills,” he said. “The new technology was immature, but offered low-cost products. The Luddites therefore lost their jobs, under the pressure of demand for price cuts.”
He anticipated that skilled high-income workers in our era will be as unable to change their attitudes as the Luddites.
“Individuals will lose their hegemony in the data world,” he said. “Those who seize the hegemony will be systems, authorities, firms, organizations and people who own engines and data.”
According to the vice president, sociologists and psychologists these days are eager to work for Facebook, because the global info-tech giant is holding an enormous amount of data.
A few years ago, Facebook was embroiled in controversy, by conducting a secret psychological experiment on 700,000 users by manipulating their news feeds.
Although the test was criticized by many, this case showed the company’s leverage according to researchers.
“Researchers have no choice but to envy Facebook’s experiment for now,” Song said.
In addition to the above-mentioned licensed professions, journalism is not an exception among jobs affected by big data, according to Song, who also delivers communication lectures at Korea University.
He expects machines will write better straight news stories than people do.
“Robots may outdo people in several areas of investigative reporting,” he said. “For instance, when a baseball player throws a ball, machines will immediately come up with interesting data on the ball. That is impossible for a person.”
He said journalists will be required to offer more evidence for their articles than before.
“Most journalists have relied on the opinions of social media users and a few people on the street so far,” he said. “Big data will change the scene. The public will want specific and objective evidence expressed in numbers.”
Song was also confident of making content other than news articles through big data analysis.
He mentioned House of Cards distributed by Netflix as an example.
“Netflix is offering what viewers want,” he said. “Big data will continue to be used as a tool to read the public’s minds and thoughts.”
Remaining hurdles
Because of these concerns, Song said Korean companies will have no choice but to use big data for their survival.
“As Korea has a small domestic demand and a high level of dependence on exports, companies should globalize themselves,” he said.
According to the vice president, Korea is at an early stage of using big data.
Local retailers, such as Shinsegae and Lotte, have just begun using big data, aiming to offer the most-preferred products to each customer.
Recently, Lotte Confectionery even released new types of Pepero cookie sticks, by using an IBM Watson artificial intelligence (AI) agent’s analysis of 10 million consumer reports posted on 80,000 websites regarding foods.
Lotte Confectionery has become the country’s first company that produced snacks using big data analysis.
“Big data will be used in every sector of industry, like water and gas,” Song said. “It will enable businesses to optimize their use of resources.”
However, Korea has yet to set up a system for training experts in big data analysis.
A Korea Data Agency report last year showed that a third of Korean companies, which have yet to adopt big data, mentioned the lack of experts as the main reason for not using the technology. It also showed the country had 9,321 experts in big data analysis as of last year, but it still needs 6,451 additional experts by 2019.
Against this backdrop, the government launched the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but Song said proper compensation for achievements of the experts must be the top priority.
“Talented students in Korea still want to be doctors and civil servants, because researchers are underpaid here,” he said. “Will people like Demis Hassabis, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs be able to emerge in these circumstances?”
Asked about controversies on the use of personal information for big data analysis, Song gave a simple answer.
“Data is neutral,” he said. “Technology itself does not cause problems, but people who deal with it can cause them.”
Of course, the vice president understood Korean people’s concerns on the theft of their personal information.
“It is true that most people are traceable in Korea, because they use credit cards,” he said.
However, he said partial deregulation of personal information will boost the economy.
“I think the government can partially ease regulations on medical records for the sake of the health of humankind and welfare promotion. The records can also be used to develop new drugs,” he said.