I deleted my Reddit accounts this weekend, after three years on the site. I knew it was bad when I could predict the top n comments before even heading to the comments section.
I don't care as much about these companies having my data - I care more about the value they actually provide to me, which is very little in most cases. FB is garbage; Reddit is a bonafide circlejerk; LinkedIn's value is marginal, outside of connecting and following-up with potential new colleagues/business partners (the content on LinkedIn could be some of the worst on the Internet... talk about clickbait).
In the few days since I deleted just Reddit, my thinking has been clearer (even though it was the weekend, I still worked both days), and I am thus far able to accomplish and focus better.
Although, here I am on HN, writing this comment still...
This is hyperbole. It's not all hype. A lot of it is hype, yes, but there are many examples of great value being derived from advanced analytics.
The real issue is setting expectations with those on the outside trying to get in - a 3-month boot camp with no prior programming or statistics knowledge is just not going to get you to the level of competence required for this type of career. All of these MOOCs for ML/AI/DS are bullshit if you haven't the foundation underneath, which, based off of those people I know who've taken those courses, doesn't exist for many MOOCers.
The fact of the matter is that most companies don't need "artificial intelligence"; they need intelligence - people with domain and statistical knowledge and enough programming skills to be dangerous. As cool as some AI/ML tech is, you could get so far as a data scientist with great knowledge of a few statistical approaches and above-average programming skills.
You're right in one sense, though: there are a lot of data science practices/applications that aren't worth the value they provide. There are others that are worth exponentially more than their operating costs. As with most things in statistics, whether data science is effective "depends."
I don't care as much about these companies having my data - I care more about the value they actually provide to me, which is very little in most cases. FB is garbage; Reddit is a bonafide circlejerk; LinkedIn's value is marginal, outside of connecting and following-up with potential new colleagues/business partners (the content on LinkedIn could be some of the worst on the Internet... talk about clickbait).
In the few days since I deleted just Reddit, my thinking has been clearer (even though it was the weekend, I still worked both days), and I am thus far able to accomplish and focus better.
Although, here I am on HN, writing this comment still...