It's not for the lack of trying or spending millions on developing and building huge data systems, the problems are many but can be traced back to one simple thing; Clients have been sold that data gives them the answers and that big data will close the loop for them to understand the upstream and downstream thinking of their customers, WRONG. Douglas Adam's said "But even Amazon has only got part of the picture. Like real world shops, they can only record the sales they actually make. What about the sales they don't make and don't know that they haven't made because they haven't made them?" Douglas Adams "The Salmon of Doubt" by Permission of Pan Macmillan. That pretty much covers the problem if you extrapolate the thinking for Data Analytics, Big Data or even Artificial Intelligence based Data and Decision systems.

There is a continuous drive for human to be more like machines, but the problem is they are not. No matter how well a business or product message is crafted everyone that hears it, hears it differently. They hear it according to their experiences, their knowledge and this is why mass market media exists in the hope of shooting wide and attracting some part of peoples attentions and thinking patterns. In this generation AI will have a huge impact, however machines work in an absolute form of Socratic Logic which is not how humans think. Science has a huge responsibility here, as it has pushed an absolute notion of things and people.

Vol 13, No. 2. Published: Emerald Fulltext.

Just as humanity is starting to deal with business processes that should never have been digitized we might also consider the huge waste in making Smart Cities when we no longer need cities. Watching humanity evolve in retrospect it is easy to spot the errors and poor judgement, but humanity is on the cusp of a revolution so profound it calls into question the structure of our societies. Think for a moment, why do we need cities? They create centralization of people and resources however they also drive costs as often space is insufficient for demand. There is a huge dependency on the need for workspace, shops and local living accommodation. In a Smart Economy with people engaged in Smart Living people rely on digital communications not face to face engagements.