Artificial Intelligence For Dummies

Chapter 2

Defining the Role of Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

Seeing data as a universal resource

Obtaining and manipulating data

Looking for mistruths in data

Defining data acquisitions limits

There is nothing new about data. Every interesting application ever written for a computer has data associated with it. Data comes in many forms — some organized, some not. What has changed is the amount of data. Some people find it almost terrifying that we now have access to so much data that details nearly every aspect of most people’s lives, sometimes to a level that even the person doesn’t realize. In addition, the use of advanced hardware and improvements in algorithms make data the universal resource for AI today.

To work with data, you must first obtain it. Today, applications collect data manually, as done in the past, and also automatically, using new methods. However, it’s not a matter of just one to two data collection techniques; collection methods take place on a continuum from fully manual to fully automatic.

Raw data doesn’t usually work well for analysis purposes. This chapter also ...