The challenges and the promising future of pattern

recognition, predictive analysis and “self-learning” solutions

linkedin.com/pulse/challenges-promising-future-pattern-recognition-predictive-bosak

Thinking of the predictive analytics, expert systems, and the AI/Machine learning - it is a fact
that people have always tried to understand, model, and automate anything, including the
very decision-making process.

That's exactly why the "expert systems" were created for in the olden days.
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They were machine-language-coded aggregates of the rules and algorithms human experts
were aware of being used by humans in making specific, usually very narrowly defined but
important decisions.

The logic was to make it more available and affordable to a lot more use-cases than
otherwise.

Since then - catalysed by developments in different fields, and facilitated with the increase
of the available computing power and reduction of the costs - a new paradigm in computing
has been created, where a "system" has been programmed to "learn" based on the initial
criteria, borderline behaviour, and system dynamics.

So, now, we have all kinds of buzzwords: pattern recognition, trending, heuristic and
behavioural analysis, AI - to name a few. The field of application has been literally unlimited:

Military tech automated monitoring and reacting systems where it became important
to predict a threat
Financial market algorithms where the accuracy of recognising trends yields profits
IT security field where recognising any kind of threat has become increasingly
important
Process optimisation and resources consumption in industry and energy production
and distribution

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However, modelling of any dynamic system has recognised new challenges and problems to
solve:

What is it that makes a Trend? What does it depend on?

How is information collected?
What generates the data?
Why is it being generated? Cause and effect?
"Closed system" problem:
What does the data really show?

Any realistic system to be modelled is inherently a “closed system” and therefore has
limits/boundaries and - close to the "boundaries" - any process initiated "inside" behaves
differently, in a "non-linear" fashion.

In fact, any realistic dynamical systems CAN be linear only within a certain range of variables
defining it. How to recognise, define and model the borderline behaviour - if at all? Besides
the boundaries’ challenge, any systemic process behaves in a nonlinear manner in the
inception and just before it terminates. How to recognise, define and model that? There is
something so many companies and organisations strive to measure, and model for a variety
of reasons:

Decision-making phenomenon and/or human behaviour scenarios, defining the

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 economic behaviour within a Market.
Decision making of segmented population groups in politics.

It is the predictive analysis of human reasoning and behaviour that creates so many new
challenges. There are the facts that yield new questions because people tend to “do things”
only because they are somehow motivated. A plethora of questions arises:

What motivates individuals?

How individual motivation affects the “group” they belong to?
What are their interests, affinities, expectations, goals, and desires?
What creates/generates any of the above? It may be that every field of engagement
has a different set of perception criteria and decision making variables?
People think in Scenarios; Which scenarios are they aware of and why?
What really is generic, and what are the specifics?
What do people try to avoid and why?
How do people learn and form habits and belief systems? What are the decision
priorities influencing the learning model?

How to best measure, analyse, model and predict the above? A whole new field has been
trying to deal with the above, aptly called the Behavioural Economics. Another one is the
Machine learning most often associated with the AI, yet another spinoff of the trend is the
topological data analysis pioneered by the Ayasdi start-up, etc.

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With all the challenges being already worked upon by organised groups of smart
individuals, we may expect life-style changing solutions in the times to come.

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