Revolution has been a buzzword in the IT industry for a long time, but could it be that we’re on our way to a true industrial revolution? And if so, what will that revolution look like? One proposed answer is human augmentation. Specifically, augmented intelligence. Abhi Mehta, CEO and cofounder of Tresata Inc., suggested that’s what AI should stand for, instead of for artificial intelligence.

“We would be able to lift humanity’s intelligence. That excites me,” said Mehta. But how to accomplish such a thing? Open source can deliver the revolution needed in today’s industry.

Mehta was interviewed by Jeff Frick (@jefffrick), Dave Vellante (@dvellante), and Peter Burris (@plburris), hosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, as theCUBE kicked off Day 3 at BigDataNYC 2016 in New York. This was day three of the conference, and theCUBE’s seventh year covering the event.

Three fundamental concepts

A key component of this industrial revolution is the open-source community that has grown so much in recent years. But open-source technology is hard to monetize.

“The utilitarian parts of the revolution have to live on very thin margins,” said Mehta. Technology is only one piece of the picture, and not the best one to try to monetize, he explained. The three concepts are: technology, talent and tools.

How to monetize in an open-sourced world

So if technology is open, how do you make money?

“In California during the gold rush, you didn’t make money digging for gold; you made money selling shovels,” said Mehta. A fitting metaphor for the idea that investing in talent and tools, especially tools, is how to turn a profit. The actual data, databases, algorithms and so on would be open source. Money would come from the tools to use that technology to benefit specific areas, such as automation of healthcare.

And healthcare is a good place to start. “Big Data is all about making life cheaper, better. … If we forget about how to solve problems for humans, we’ve lost. We want to be known for enriching life,” said Mehta.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of BigDataNYC 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE