# What Data Science Is and How It Supports Personalized Experiences

DevFeed: [What Data Science Is and How It Supports Personalized Experiences](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/data-science-or-witchcraft-20399.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://target.github.io/data%20science%20and%20engineering/dse-intro-one>)

Author: Target Brands, Inc

Published: 2016-03-01T06:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Target](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/target.md>)

Topics: [Data Science](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-science.md>), [Machine learning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/machine-learning.md>), [Algorithms, Complexity](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/algorithms-complexity.md>), [High-Performance Computing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/high-performance-computing.md>)

Tags: [algorithms](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/algorithms.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [data-science](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-science.md>), [data-science-and-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-science-and-engineering.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [high-performance-computing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/high-performance-computing.md>), [machine-learning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/machine-learning.md>), [science](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/science.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains data science through everyday decision-making, describing how experience and instruction help people build models that guide judgment and anticipate outcomes. It connects these ideas to statistical models, machine learning algorithms, and Target's goal of creating personalized guest experiences.

## Source excerpt

On my first encounter with it, around early 2010's, I was mystified. It sounded like witchcraft and I imagined the practitioners to be a coven of witches and wizards, all holding Ph.D.s in the dark art of "Data Science" and being respectfully addressed as "Data Scientists". It was believed they would magically transform haystacks into gold and then ask for your first-born in return as a reward for their service (a la Rumpelstiltskin) There is no denying the fact that the title "Data Scientist" is the most coveted one these days and has a nice ring to it. It's also true that data science has traditionally been a monopoly of mathematicians and statisticians. Obviously, developing statistical models and machine learning algorithms requires years of training and practice to specialize. In my opinion it is more of an art form driven by science and can easily be mistaken for magic. It's common knowledge that the more experienced in life we get, the easier it is for us to make up our mind. For instance, "What diner to pick for a boy's-night-out?", "When to stay off highways to avoid being stuck in a traffic-jam?", "When to buy a house? When NOT to buy?", are all such decions we make everyday. This ability comes as result of years of learning from implicit experience (a.k.a unsupervised learning) and explicit instructions from parents, teachers, friends, family and media (a.k.a supervised learning.) Our brain builds models of the world, of the situations we have been in, of banal and extraordinary, of nice and not-so-nice, of appropriate and inappropriate etc. These models facilitate judgment, govern behavior and enable anticipation of likely outcomes. That's basically data science. The recent progress in large scale and high performance computing has opened doors for such complex calculations to be performed on-demand and much more efficiently than was possible before. Hence, the buzz! At Target we operate in a guest-centric universe. We don't treat our guests as a statist