Data vs AI

Data vs Algorithm

This is a really exquisite question – in AI (and given resources are limited in the real world) should a company invest in better data or better algorithms? Good question, right?

There is actually a study done by a Microsoft team that looked exactly at this topic – and the conclusion was… that usually (not always), collecting better data ends up being more valuable than investing in better algorithms => it generates better outcomes. The reasoning for this is modern algorithms’ performance differences are relatively small – and smaller than the difference in performance of the same algorithm with more/less data.

So… Data > Algorithm.

Now, a word of caution. There are businesses, where fortunes are made on infinitesimal differences (think about financial trading) – nobody will want to play with a slightly worse algorithm than its competitors…