The Data Science Revolution

Abstract : Data science technology is rapidly changing the role of information technology in society and all economic sectors. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are at the forefront of attention. However, data science is much broader and also includes data extraction, data preparation, data exploration, data transformation, storage and retrieval, computing infrastructures, other types of mining and learning, presentation of explanations and predictions, and the exploitation of results taking into account ethical, social, legal, and business aspects. This paper provides an overview of the field of data science also showing the main developments, thereby focusing on (1) the growing importance of learning from data (rather than modeling or programming), (2) the transfer of tasks from humans to (software) robots, and (3) the risks associated with data science (e.g., privacy problems, unfair or nontransparent decision making, and the market dominance of a few platform providers).