Data Science + Complexity + Human Development –> Our Future?

Human development has been described by Selim Jahan (head of the UNDP program) as “development of the people (capital), for the people (translated to the lives of people) and by the people (people are not only receiving but active participant in the process).” How have we done as a humanity to fulfill this hope originally manifested through the Gettysburg address? Does data science have a role to play in advancing the human condition? What role does complexity play in advancing our understanding of global human development processes and their multitude of dimensions? In order predict valuable solutions to some of the worlds most intractable problems, will combined domain expertise from the perspective of computer science & statistics with global human development be sufficient, or is a new integrated paradigm needed? What hope do we have in selecting the best future path for humanity?

Though we might have only fulfilled one-third of Jahan’s definition of human development, this does not mean that there is no hope for the future of using data science to aid human development. We have successfully developed capital in some areas, however, we have limited our ability to efficiently aid development by not completing the later definitions of development: for the people and by the people. As Blumenstock illustrated in his article, “Don’t Forget People In The Use Of Big Data For Development”, by not including groups in need in the statistics and data we are using to build models to spur economic development or allocate aid in the more effective places, we are hampering our ability to increase development. The lives of people in true poverty in the developing world are often overlooked due to their inability to be in the data set, oftentimes due to lack of technology. Thus, the people who are most in need are not an active part of development, which decreases the amount of effective change possible by data scientists, economists, policymakers, and humanitarian efforts all designed to increase the quality of life in developing areas.

Thus, data science is imperative in advancing the human condition. More specifically, it isn’t about just having data, as data without meaning is ineffective, rather, it is about having the right data that accurately represents the populations in need and that showcases the problems to their fullest extent. In addition, beyond just collecting data, data science is needed to advance humanity because it is necessary for identifying problems, creating solutions, and modeling situations through trial and error. It can be argued that one of the most intriguing and useful facets of data science is our ability to model and predict future trends or changes based on possible changes in aid, policy, regulations, or other aspects of attempting to increase human development. Though we can’t do trial and error actively in people’s lives, as that would be inhumane and not an intelligent idea, we can map out using data science how we think things might go in the future, and use those predictions to guide our decisions. In order to make these predictions, however, it can’t just take computer scientists, statisticians, and data scientists, it must take people with hands-on experience who are connected to and in the places where development is actively occurring. Due to the complexity of development, and the idea that it is not just about increasing income or expanding the economy, rather it is about increasing the ability of people to have freedom: of education, of healthcare, of free speech, etc, it is imperative that data scientists work in tandem with experts in those fields. If you view development as a team effort, the World-Cup winning team would be one filled with doctors and nurses who can identify the most pressing healthcare problems in a country and brainstorm solutions for them, teachers and professors who know the most imperative things to teach and ways to learn to increase literacy in a country, politicians intent on opening societal views as well as freedoms in a country and transitioning a countries’ economy, engineers and architects who can build and design infrastructures, people who can donate money to fund initiatives, computer and data scientists who can gather the necessary data and make sense of it in order to begin to develop solutions, and countless other individuals. This role of complexity is arguably the most important aspect of human development.

Complexity can make human development seem daunting, as it would be easier if there was a set path or way to help others, but because human development is so complicated and complex, it shows that humanity itself is complex and unpredictable, which is important because, as shown in Barder’s talk, we can’t engineer a solution, rather, we must let them actively sprout and it is our job to aid along the already natural-born process of development. Complexity is absolutely necessary to understand human development because we must understand that different areas have to work together in order to increase development and quality of life. Though daunting in theory, complexity is also promising. As Amartya Sen mentioned in Chapter 2, the interconnectedness of social opportunities, political freedoms, economic facilities, transparency guarantees, and protective security proves that development isn’t just for rich countries and society, rather, there is hope for impoverished countries to increase their quality of life in ways other than just pure economic growth. In order to truly understand and increase human development globally, we have to look at it through an entirely new lens: one of complexity, interconnectedness, and gray instead of the black and white of one path or another. We can not select a path, as Barder suggested that we resist engineering solutions and instead let evolution take over, but we can guide development in the right direction through data science and its applications. Though we have yet to complete the promises of development put forth by Jahan, if we adopt a new way of thinking about and acting upon human development as a complex system, there is hope that we can achieve development for everyone.