Its main driver is the astounding volume of data stored by private companies and public authorities, which can now be treated more easily with new algorithms to extract the information hidden among them. Nonetheless, at the Bank of Italy, Data Science is not completely new. We do have a sound history of basing our decisions on data.
In 2016, we established a multidisciplinary team to address the potential benefits and hidden risks of embracing the technological challenges of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) fuelled by the advances in big data, which continue to evolve at an incredible speed. A gargantuan amount of digital activity is occurring every day. In fact, data are constantly generated by our internet activities.