KDD 2003 - Panels

Place and Time:15:30-17:00 (International Ballroom - Center)

Chair: Dr. Rakesh Agrawal, IBM Almaden Research Center

The explosive progress in networking, storage, and processor technologies has created an unprecedented capability to collect, store, and process massive amounts of data. Data mining, with its promise of efficiently discovering valuable, non-obvious information from large databases, is posing an interesting dilemma. Applications abound where data mining could do enormous good. However, under misguided hands, in conjunction with other advanced technologies, it could be vulnerable to misuse. Indeed, of late, data mining has come to be portrayed by some as a potential threat to civil liberties and privacy. The goal of this panel is to debate and understand the concerns with data mining and to identify research directions that may address those concerns.

Panelists will address the following specific questions:

1. Perceived concerns with data mining
2. How real are those concerns
3. What the data mining community is doing to address those concerns
4. What more needs to be done

Panelists:

Prof. Christopher Clifton, Purdue University
Dr. Lawrence Cox, National Center for Health Statistics
Mr. James Dempsey, Center for Democracy & Technology
Mr. Daniel Gallington, Potomac Institute
Prof. Latanya Sweeney, Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham, National Science Foundation
Prof. Jeff Ullman, Stanford University

Time and Place:17:30-18:30 (International Ballroom - Center)

Chair: Usama Fayyad, President, DMX Group

After nearly a decade and a half of KDD conferences and a significant growth in demand for data mining technology driven by a glut in data, data mining has grown as a healthy research community. However, we still struggle on two important fronts: the scientific and the commercial. On the scientific front, Data Mining still needs to reach a stronger level of attracting steady contributions from the related fields. On the commercial fronts, the huge opportunity has not yet been met with adequate tools and solutions. This panel will attempt to address the possible future directions for Data Mining and KDD. Will we continue a healthy evolution to being a scientific field of study with a healthy contributing community? Will we go more down the path of systems and engineering? What are the next challenge problems? What are the milestones that define healthy growth and significant advances? Is data mining destined to continue to be a visible area of focus and research, or will it evolve towards embedded technology studied as part of other systems? The presence of a significant set of research challenge problems against which measurable progress can be made is a crucial component for the growth of a scientific field. What will these challenge problems look like for KDD and Data Mining over the next 10 years and beyond?

Panelists:

Rakesh Agrawal, IBM Almaden Research
Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, KDnuggets
Daryl Pregibon, AT&T Research
Ragu Ramakrishnan, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Ramasamy Uthurusamy, General Motors