What does social science have to offer the data industry? • Hacker News Board

Re: What does social science have to offer the data industry?

#21

Post by eksemplar » Sat, May 12, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

zaphar wrote: post #12

eksemplar wrote: post #6

I think there is an important lesson in the approach to science that we see in the social sciences. Coming from a technical background we approach science, and data, as being the fundamental way of discover truth, but with humans there are often more than one truth. We’ve seen the effect of it in management over the past 25 years. Today a good manager is expected to approach a team, not by instructing them in what to…

Except that they still can't do what the author needs in order to do her work. A tool she can use. Social Sciences have not yet produced anything that can effectively produce a change or even adequately describe a social system. Her tagline is appropriate. She'll gladly use a tool that works, but she won't use one on faith.

You're right, but I think my point is that data science hasn't really done anything useful in fields involving humans.

Don't get me wrong, we do a lot of data science in the public sector these years, but we also measure it's efficiency and capability and compare it to the past 100 years of us doing the same thing without AI, and things haven't improved. At least not yet.

Mean while, the social sciences have given us tool that help us inflict actual lasting change on groups of people simply by using language in a specific way or working toward a shared consensus.

So maybe the question shouldn't be what social sciences have to offer AI research, but rather, what data science has to offer social fields.

I'm well aware that data science has it's value in other fields. We use it to troll through massive amounts case files and save thousands of man-hours in the process, but why would you want to use social science for that?

Re: What does social science have to offer the data industry?

#22

Post by nonbel » Sat, May 12, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

eksemplar wrote: post #21

zaphar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that they still can't do what the author needs in order to do her work. A tool she can use. Social Sciences have not yet produced anything that can effectively produce a change or even adequately describe a social system. Her tagline is appropriate. She'll gladly use a tool that works, but she won't use one on faith.

You're right, but I think my point is that data science hasn't really done anything useful in fields involving humans. Don't get me wrong, we do a lot of data science in the public sector these years, but we also measure it's efficiency and capability and compare it to the past 100 years of us doing the same thing without AI, and things haven't improved. At least not yet. Mean while, the social sciences have given us…

>"data science hasn't really done anything useful in fields involving humans."

So you think data science has not been useful to google, amazon, facebook, etc?

Basically you are proposing that (at least) hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent with no return so far. It is possible but is there evidence for this?

Re: What does social science have to offer the data industry?

#23

Post by rossdavidh » Sat, May 12, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

xapata wrote: post #4

rossdavidh wrote: post #2

Ouch. I think one way to think of this is, does a given field have any tools that, even if you disagreed with their values, you would still want access to? People who don't like the idea of natural selection, still want doctors to take into account the phenomenon of antibiotic-resistant infections in their treatment. People who dislike the values of the software industry, often still want access to computers to publi…

You don't like cost-benefit analysis? Or city planning? I suspect some topics which you might think are just "common sense" come from intensive research.

I could believe that intensive research can be useful, but from the cases I have seen of cost-benefit analysis or city planning actually being used, no I don't like those. Cost-benefit analysis (as actually used by business) seems to leave out any strategic advantage that cannot be quantified, and city planning (as actually practiced by cities) seems to be responsible for a lot of what went wrong in the last half of the 20th century in America's cities.

Of course, it could well be that the tools of social scientists were being mishandled by amatuers; I could pretty easily believe that. But as examples, those two both look to me to be net negatives.

Re: What does social science have to offer the data industry?

#24

Post by xapata » Sun, May 13, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #23

xapata wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't like cost-benefit analysis? Or city planning? I suspect some topics which you might think are just "common sense" come from intensive research.

I could believe that intensive research can be useful, but from the cases I have seen of cost-benefit analysis or city planning actually being used, no I don't like those. Cost-benefit analysis (as actually used by business) seems to leave out any strategic advantage that cannot be quantified, and city planning (as actually practiced by cities) seems to be responsible for a lot of what went wrong in the last half of…

> leave out any strategic advantage that cannot be quantified

Everything can be quantified, no matter how intangible. Perhaps you're not familiar with the research.

> city planning (as actually practiced by cities)

On the whole, city governments ignore city planning researchers.

What's your academic background? If you've never studied social sciences, you may not be aware of what the scientists are saying.

Re: What does social science have to offer the data industry?

#25

Post by xapata » Sun, May 13, 2018, 2:50 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #2

Ouch. I think one way to think of this is, does a given field have any tools that, even if you disagreed with their values, you would still want access to? People who don't like the idea of natural selection, still want doctors to take into account the phenomenon of antibiotic-resistant infections in their treatment. People who dislike the values of the software industry, often still want access to computers to publi…

I've thought of one social technology I'd really like: a Pigovian tax to reduce pollution, especially greenhouse gasses.