The human brain is one of the most sophisticated machines in the universe. It has evolved for thousands of years to its current state. As a result of continuous evolution, we are able to make sense of nature's inherent processes and understand cause and effect relationships. Based on this understanding, we are able to learn from nature and devise similar machines and mechanisms to constantly evolve and improve our lives. For example, the video cameras we use derived from the understanding of the human eye.
Fundamentally, human intelligence works on the paradigm of sense, store, process, and act. Through the sensory organs, we gather information about our surroundings, store the information (memory), process the information to form our beliefs/patterns/links, and use the information to act based on the situational context and stimulus.
Currently, we are at a very interesting juncture of evolution where the human race has found a way to store information in an electronic format. We are also trying to devise machines that imitate the human brain to be able to sense, store, and process information to make meaningful decisions and complement human abilities.
This introductory chapter will set the context for the convergence of human intelligence and machine intelligence at the onset of a data revolution. We have the ability to consume and process volumes of data that were never possible before. We will understand how our quality of life is the result of our decisive power and actions and how it translates to the machine world. We will understand the paradigm of Big Data along with its core attributes before diving into artificial intelligence (AI) and its basic fundamentals. We will conceptualize the Big Data frameworks and how those can be leveraged for building intelligence into machines. The chapter will end with some of the exciting applications of Big Data and AI.
We will cover the following topics in the chapter:
- Results pyramid
- Comparing the human and the electronic brain
- Overview of Big Data
