With the rise of AI in people’s lives, the need to acknowledge good training data has not been more significant in the past. AI, ML, and Big data play an important role in various industries including government, corporate, science, and more.
The AI market has been expanding like wildfire. AI Market size was 1.3 billion USD in 2021. It is expected to grow to a whopping 2.8 trillion by 2023, according to McKinsey Global Survey. According to IBM, 35% of companies are already using AI and 45% of companies are exploring AI to adopt them in the future.
Even though AI and ML are quite a buzzing topic nowadays, the “thing” that fuels AI and ML remains under the shadow. AI Training data is something that trains the AI to function in the manner it should. And the quality of data matters a lot in this respect.
In this blog, we’ll explore the evolution of AI training data, understand what qualifies as a quality dataset, and dive into its past, present, and future.
Training data is a set of carefully curated information that is fed to a system for training. The quality of training data fed to any system determines the AI’s success. Better quality data means better intelligence of the computer or system.
While training any data, loads of information are fed to the system. For example, for teaching the system about cats, a whole lot of cat images, videos, characteristic info, etc will be provided to the system. So, when the system encounters any such information or visuals about a cat, it understands that it’s a cat, and provides more information about the cat from its database if needed.
This also means that the data must be so accurate and diversified, that the system must not confuse every four-legged animal as a cat.
So, AI training data is like training a child. Kids are taught language by labeling A, B, C, D, etc. Similarly, the Machine is also trained about the information by feeding data to it.
A collection of labeled data fed into the machine-learning algorithm to enable it to make accurate predictions is called AI training data. On the basis of the data, the ML system tries to identify, recognize, and understand the relations between different components and make necessary decisions by evaluating them.
So, for enhancing the overall quality of machine learning, the data fed to it must be both in large quantity and good quality. The data must be unbiased, diversified, and valuable. Also, it needs to be well-structured, annotated, and labeled training data.
Let’s dive into the timeline of AI Training data evolution.
The beginning phase of AI Training Data
The beginning phase of AI Training data was sans Machine learning. That is, humans (programmers) manually created new rules to create accurate module outputs by evaluating the existing module outputs. This was the 1990s.
During 2000–2005, Machine learning began to rise. The first major database was created, which was not very efficient. It was slow and expensive and relied on the resources.
From 2005 to 2010, Amazon’s MTurk entered the playground and provided a widely-available platform for developing datasets at scale.
2010–2015 encountered human labeling and annotation. Human non-programmers evaluated the medium output and annotated data. It was this time when deep learning models came into play, known as data-hungry neural models.
Since 2015, Adoptive models began to rise. That means a system needs small datasets for making predictions. They do that by linking this small information with the pre-existing information. These state-of-the-art pre-trained adaptive models became available to others for free.
AI and ML are becoming more accessible to people other than programmers such as analysts, business owners, decision, and policymakers, or simply people who are interested in AI and ML. The non-programmers can evaluate the data models too, without the need for complex AI models.
Quality over Quantity: Previously, the quantity of data was given value. It was thought that more quantity means accuracy in module output. With time scientists realized that for accurate results, quality matters more, such as data completeness, reliability, validity, availability, and timeliness.
What was lacking in early AI Training data? A combination of poor training data and a lack of advanced computer systems resulted in the early AI system fiasco.
The lack of quality training data resulted in faulty recognition of visuals. Due to the lack of speech datasets, spoken language recognition did not come to fruition too. Additionally, computers at that time did not have good storage capacities, which was one of the major setbacks in recording large datasets essential for machine learning.
Quality AI Training Data: The Transition
In order to upgrade to a better Machine learning process, It was crucial that systems learn to mimic human intelligence and make decisions like them. This needed to thrive on high-quality and high-quantity data.
For better recognition of patterns and accurate decisions, a data sample that contains all the possible variables is needed.
Need for Quality Training Data For the advancement in AI Technology, quality AI Training data is needed. In order for ML models to be reliable, there is a need for efficient data collection, annotation, and labeling methodologies.
Quality Data Collection, Filtering, and Accuracy Data needs to go through iterative data refining steps to draw accurate outcomes. An ML model needs, thousands of accurately labeled and annotated information and visuals to link its trained information with the information existing in the real world. That’s when it provides accurate results.
The ML algorithm ML will render useless if the data is not reliable.
Need for Data Diversity and Representative Training Data In today’s world, even humans are scorned for being biased. Then it is crucial that the machines are unbiased, just, and competent. This goal could be achieved by gathering diverse information globally. A homogenous dataset will serve only a particular group of people when it is structured to serve “humans”. A biased model would be considered an inaccurate model.
The curated data needs to be annotated and labeled with diverse information that is balanced and represents the diverse population.
AI Training Data: The Future
Although both the quantity and quality of data are relevant, the relationship between quantity and quality of data differs with each prompt.
Data Collection and Annotation Techniques Breakthrough There need to be effective policies for data collection and annotation, in order to derive accurate results. These policies are needed to minimize faulty output or errors such as inaccurate content, misrepresentation, incomplete measurements, data duplication, errors in data collection, erroneous measurements, and curation errors.
There are various methods of accurate data collection including data mining, web scraping, data extraction, and crowdsourcing.
Ethical Values in Training Data Training data collection is prone to various ethical issues such as bias, non-consent, lack of transparency, and vulnerable data privacy.
Data now contains vulnerable data including facial images, voice recordings, fingerprints, and other sensitive biometric data that puts people’s crucial data at risk. Thus, it is important to adhere to ethical and legal processes to maintain a healthy environment and avoid lawsuits.
Potential for Improved Quality and Diverse Training Data With time, the relevance and adoption of AI are only going to become more pronounced. The credit goes to awareness and interest in promoting high-quality AI growth and a vast number of AI data providers.
The present times encounter data providers that use advanced technologies to derive high-quality, diversified, ethical, and legal data. These are also adept at accurately labeling, annotating, and customizing data for different ML projects.
In order to create top-notch AI models, businesses or institutes needs to collaborate with organizations that have an accurate and reliable understanding of data and how to integrate it.
GTS is a leading vendor of high-quality data to train and validate your systems to execute your AI projects effectively and efficiently. Partner with us and experience reliability and competency at their best.
To get a detailed estimation of requirements please reach us.
