KDNugget’s Poll: an Eye Opener for Data Science Debate

Cameron Turner Cameron Turner
August 28, 2015 Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
The data science debate on machine learning vs domain expertise has gone on for years now, but none of the soothsayers have been able to establish the dominance of one school of thought over the other. As the debate has attempted to polarize the thinkers into two opposing viewpoints, 2012 was the year that turned this heated argument into a more thought-provoking, introspective exercise.

Opinion Poll

The controversy started with KDNugget’s Poll on ML Replacing Domain Expertise, held in April 2012, where people had to share their personal views about machine learning replacing domain expertise. 55% of the poll respondents firmly expressed that in a large number of domains, machine learning can never replace domain expertise.

This poll highlights a very interesting comment from a specific respondent.
Ross Bettinger, on ML replacing Human Domain Expertise:
But I believe that, no matter how thoroughly one or more domain experts are debriefed by knowledge engineers, there will still be unknown unknowns or emerging trends that will not be sensible to a computer program. Until a true AI comes along that can autonomously adapt to new and unanticipated experiences, I vote for the human element and say that ML will not triumph over domain expertise.

Counter-opinion

On the other side of the spectrum, available information shows that Machine Learning + Big Data together can outperform domain expertise. At Strata 2012, Claudia Perlich’s experiences on data mining competitions will lead you to believe that she won the competitions on movie reviews, breast cancer, and customer behavior without any prior (domain) knowledge.

However, the recent poll achieved the triggering of a more rational, more inclusive dialogue between the two polarized groups. This dialogue was perhaps the beginning of a collaborative approach between the two groups to finding participatory problem-solving methods between machine learning and domain expertise. One rejoinder to KDNugget’s Poll results shows how far this debate has advanced:

Is Machine Learning v Domain Expertise the wrong question?
  • Experfy Insights

    Top articles, research, podcasts, webinars and more delivered to you monthly.

  • Cameron Turner

    Tags
    Data Science
    © 2021, Experfy Inc. All rights reserved.
    Leave a Comment
    Next Post
    Does Time Matter? Modeling Temporal Dynamics for Better Predictions

    Does Time Matter? Modeling Temporal Dynamics for Better Predictions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    More in Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    Cognitive Load Of Being On Call: 6 Tips To Address It

    If you’ve ever been on call, you’ve probably experienced the pain of being woken up at 4 a.m., unactionable alerts, alerts going to the wrong team, and other unfortunate events. But, there’s an aspect of being on call that is less talked about, but even more ubiquitous – the cognitive load. “Cognitive load” has perhaps

    5 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »
    Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    How To Refine 360 Customer View With Next Generation Data Matching

    Knowing your customer in the digital age Want to know more about your customers? About their demographics, personal choices, and preferable buying journey? Who do you think is the best source for such insights? You’re right. The customer. But, in a fast-paced world, it is almost impossible to extract all relevant information about a customer

    4 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »
    Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    3 Ways Businesses Can Use Cloud Computing To The Fullest

    Cloud computing is the anytime, anywhere delivery of IT services like compute, storage, networking, and application software over the internet to end-users. The underlying physical resources, as well as processes, are masked to the end-user, who accesses only the files and apps they want. Companies (usually) pay for only the cloud computing services they use,

    7 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »

    About Us

    Incubated in Harvard Innovation Lab, Experfy specializes in pipelining and deploying the world's best AI and engineering talent at breakneck speed, with exceptional focus on quality and compliance. Enterprises and governments also leverage our award-winning SaaS platform to build their own customized future of work solutions such as talent clouds.

    Join Us At

    Contact Us

    1700 West Park Drive, Suite 190
    Westborough, MA 01581

    Email: support@experfy.com

    Toll Free: (844) EXPERFY or
    (844) 397-3739

    © 2025, Experfy Inc. All rights reserved.