Enterprise leaders need to apply ML like they should all other technologies – deliberately and only when and where it delivers specific, measurable business value.
Several years ago, I lived along the coast and had this fantastic deck. It had this crazy breeze that always seemed to be blowing across it. I loved that deck, except for one thing. It could get very cold.
So, I decided that I needed a space heater to complete my vision of deck-bliss. But I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a space heater like those restaurants used on their patios. It just seemed so, well, unoriginal.
Which is why I was so excited when I found it. I had walked into a hardware store looking for something innocuous and there it was: this interesting, modern and completely unique outdoor space heater. I had never seen anything like it. I bought it on the spot and happily took it home with a Cheshire Cat grin on my face.
Alas, my bliss was short-lived.
It seemed that I wasn’t the only one taken by this new space heater design. Within weeks, they were popping up everywhere — on my neighbor’s decks, in public spaces and, of course, on restaurant patios. To this day, whenever I see one I sigh inwardly and pout a little.
In many ways, this is the same story of technology fads in general — and the rise of machine learning specifically. Like my momentarily unique space heater, machine learning was briefly this unique thing of wonder. But it almost instantly went from unique to commonplace.
Machine learning is now on the tip of every IT executive tongue and spewing forth from every vendor trying to sell those executives, well, anything. But like the plethora of technologies before it, machine learning is no panacea. And like most other over-hyped fads, there is both truth and myth, promise and peril lying just beneath the surface. It’s critical that you can tell one from the other.
Read the entire article at https://www.cio.com/article/3236165/machine-learning/the-promise-and-perils-of-machine-learning-in-the-enterprise.html
Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, ServiceNow and AppDyanmics are Intellyx customers.
