As the AI boom sends tech firms scrambling for more data to improve their models and puts a premium on the companies that own it, data scientists say businesses and governments need to understand that the technology won’t be useful or accurate without their work.
“Data-driven discovery is becoming so impactful,” said Lisa Strug, a professor in the University of Toronto’s statistical and computer science departments and a senior scientist at SickKids [and Director of the Data Sciences Institute]. As businesses in many sectors and research fields like microbiology, astronomy and the social sciences all adopt AI, she says, they’ll need new data science methods and more practitioners.