I have to admit that meta data is superior to synthetic data which is better than synthetic meta data.
The scary part is that from a psychological point of view, we tend to believe that more information is better than less information. If only we knew X, that would make this decision so much easier.
A lot of times we don’t know what X is, so we gather as much information as we can and hope that X will magically reveal itself in the mass of data that we collect both systematically and randomly.
When making decisions, we almost always wish we had better information (not necessarily more information). More information doesn’t usually provide more clarity, often it adds complexity and makes things murkier.
We are overwhelmed by data and the meta data around data. Meta data is everywhere. Every bit of data creates meta data. The data about the data may be more interesting than the data itself.
And now with AI tools creating data, the already hectic pace of data production is just going to be worse. Information is writing itself and probably referring to things that wrote to write more.
Tools to analyze data are creating even more data to be analyzed. This cycle is endless and it is not necessarily more enlightening.
The value in data is in the leverage that it provides, not necessarily in the quantity of it. The more information that is created, the less strategic leverage that any one bit of that data provides. Big data tackles this problem by absorbing data and looking for patterns to emerge.
This is useful up to a point, but somebody, somewhere has to make a judgement call.
Data is not the final answer. Judgement, intuition, timing and luck all play a part in how well a decision turns out.
The relative importance of each factor in that equation varies widely.
