It often seems these days that whether a story is about markets, macroeconomics, politics or pop culture, we are left with a hangover of anxiety. Of course, history has long featured turbulence, conflict and disruption. Today, however, we suffer from a particularly acute sense that technology has unleashed forces we cannot control. It frightens us.<\/p>\n
As a computer scientist and a quantitative trader, I have long thought about technology and the disruption it leaves in its wake. I\u2019ve often envisioned the march of technology as a dinosaur stalking its slower-moving peers. I even came up with a name for the beast: the Quantasaurus, suggesting the profound change quantitative fields, from data science to artificial intelligence, threaten to usher in \u2014 changes that many fear but I believe may in time improve our lives.<\/p>\n
The disruption wreaked by the Quantasaurus (not to be confused with the Australian dinosaur Qantassaurus, which, of course, now is extinct) is real. We live in an age of exponential growth. Data, connectivity, computing power and complexity are all growing not just in a linear fashion \u2014 say, by 10 percent a year \u2014 but exponentially. That kind of change rewrites the rules. Companies that harness that power \u2014 Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Netflix and many you may never have heard of \u2014 have the best chance to own that future, and are producing the bulk of new high-paying jobs.<\/p>\n
If we are to avoid decline or extinction, we must embrace the changes the Quantasaurus visits upon us. The Quantasaurus has the potential to create far more than it destroys. The Quantasaurus will survive, but if we choose to pen it up or flee from it, we will surrender many of its benefits.<\/p>\n
How do we domesticate the Quantasaurus? How can we prevent disruptive technologies from destroying livelihoods and instead use them to inspire innovation and adaptation?<\/p>\n
We have powerful new tools that can transcend the destruction of labor by technology, which has been feared for centuries. Supercomputers searching out patterns in an expanding universe of data are fueling innovation that will create more than it will destroy. These tools offer the possibility of more effective prediction, whether it\u2019s about the cancer lurking in a patient\u2019s genome, the nascent earthquake locked in tectonic plates or the turbulent ebb and flow of markets.<\/p>\n
Three key efforts need to be undertaken to use disruptive technologies to drive positive change.<\/p>\n
First,\u00a0government must reach out to industry<\/em>. Government programs that partner with industry can be designed to help citizens adapt.<\/p>\n Last month, at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, I met Josephine Teo, a minister in Singapore\u2019s Manpower and Foreign Affairs ministries, who spoke of her country\u2019s initiative to create \u201ctransformation maps\u201d for industry sectors \u2014 transportation, finance, health care, retail and others \u2014 to analyze how each is being affected by technological disruption and suggest steps to improve innovation and productivity.<\/p>\n Ms. Teo noted that the future might seem frightening but the outlook for jobs is not all gloomy. A focus on education and retraining from the government, combined with innovative businesses driving the demand for those workers, creates a much more promising future.<\/p>\n Second,\u00a0technology companies must partner with companies in other fields<\/em>.<\/p>\n My firm, WorldQuant, has recently embarked on a\u00a0collaboration with Weill Cornell Medicine\u00a0in New York to share our cutting-edge technology so that it can be applied to predictive medicine. Some of the tools we use to find market patterns are now analyzing disease progression, particularly as biologists sort through the\u00a0enormous database of the genome.<\/p>\n Machine learning can help scientists predict how diseases like cancer develop and evolve, how patients respond to therapy and how and why drug resistance occurs. Christopher Mason and Olivier Elemento, co-directors of the effort at Weill Cornell, and their teams are exploring ways to translate WorldQuant algorithms and data models into \u201cprecision medicine\u201d \u2014 understanding how genetic factors drive disease in individual patients.<\/p>\n Our collaboration with Weill Cornell is just the start. We need many similar experiments, such as the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, which is bringing leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft, together with nonprofit organizations to develop AI solutions to improve people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n Third,\u00a0we need to broaden opportunities and tap into pools of talent that exist around the world and at home<\/em>.<\/p>\n The disciplines that drive disruptive change are quantitative and can be taught: computer science, data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning. These fields speak the language of probability and statistics, mathematics and physics, and open up a world that\u2019s complex yet full of possibilities.<\/p>\n The way to thrive is to make these subjects as broadly available as possible \u2014 to nurture quantitative literacy \u2014 and that means keeping it accessible. American universities are wonderful centers for learning, but access to education still remains an obstacle for many today due to a range of factors, including cost and location. There should never be barriers to learning.<\/p>\n The Quantasaurus is here to stay. We should get to know it better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Igor Tulchinsky<\/strong><\/span> is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of WorldQuant.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n","endnotes":"","disclaimer":" Thought Leadership articles are prepared by and are the property of WorldQuant, LLC, and are circulated for informational and educational purposes only. This article is not intended to relate specifically to any investment strategy or product that WorldQuant or any of its affiliates offers or may offer in the future, nor does this article constitute investment, accounting, legal or tax advice or convey an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities or other financial products. WorldQuant makes no representations, express or implied, regarding the accuracy or adequacy of this information, and you accept all risks in relying on the above information for any purposes whatsoever. The views and opinions expressed herein are those solely of the author, as of the date of this article, and are subject to change without notice, and do not necessarily reflect the views of WorldQuant, its affiliates or their respective employees. No assurances can be given that any aims, assumptions, expectations and\/or goals described in this article will be realized or that the activities described in the article did or will continue at all or in the same manner as they were conducted during the period covered by this article.<\/span><\/p>\n","ideas_panel":{"ideas_panel":{"heading":"Keep reading","subheading":"","articles":[{"ID":664,"post_author":"5","post_date":"2020-02-13 01:38:52","post_date_gmt":"2020-02-13 01:38:52","post_content":"","post_title":"Lessons Learned from Apollo","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"lessons-learned-from-apollo","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-04-29 16:49:13","post_modified_gmt":"2022-04-29 16:49:13","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/wdqnt.wpengine.com\/?post_type=idea&p=664","menu_order":0,"post_type":"idea","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":747,"post_author":"5","post_date":"2021-10-08 21:40:33","post_date_gmt":"2021-10-08 21:40:33","post_content":"","post_title":"The Future of Work","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"the-future-of-work","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-04-24 22:42:09","post_modified_gmt":"2022-04-24 22:42:09","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/wdqnt.wpengine.com\/?post_type=idea&p=747","menu_order":0,"post_type":"idea","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":671,"post_author":"5","post_date":"2017-10-27 02:04:59","post_date_gmt":"2017-10-27 02:04:59","post_content":"","post_title":"Meeting the Challenge of the Quantasaurus","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"meeting-the-challenge-of-the-quantasaurus","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-04-25 01:50:06","post_modified_gmt":"2022-04-25 01:50:06","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/wdqnt.wpengine.com\/?post_type=idea&p=671","menu_order":0,"post_type":"idea","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"see_more_link":""}},"pdf_file":false,"article_format":"standard"},"yoast_head":"\n