MIT has created an artificial intelligence (AI) engine called the Data Science Machine that not only performs big data analysis, it decides which types of analysis to perform in the first place. According to the university, its researchers “aim to take the human element out of Big Data analysis, with a new system that not only searches for patterns but designs the feature set, too.”
To test the Data Science Machine’s capabilities, they entered it in three data science competitions. “Of the 906 teams participating in the three competitions, the researchers’ ‘Data Science Machine’ finished ahead of 615,” said MIT. And while it wasn’t always as accurate as the human competitors, the AI was much faster, accomplishing in two to twelve hours tasks that took the human teams several months.
Computer scientist Max Kanter, who helped design the technology said the team views it as “a natural complement to human intelligence.”
