Big Data is powerful. And as with all powerful things, there are high chances of abuse. But because it is very powerful, such abuse can have very dangerous ramifications. That’s what Matt Asay of ReadWrite draws our attention to. Here are excerpts…

1. While Big Data helps both businesses and governments anticipate human behavior (thus equipping them to develop more effective marketing campaigns and prevent crimes respectively), that is NOT the ultimate goal of signals intelligence and analysis. The end is to know what is being thought.

The expectation in this regard isn’t the prediction of your exact thought at any point in time. Close guesses will do according to George Dyson (science historian and author of Turing’s Cathedral).

2. But even the achievement of that goal (knowing your subjects’ current thoughts) might NOT satisfy us. We may want to know what they are likely to think of in the near future. This, in theory, will help marketers sell better and governments enforce the law (or prevent violations) more effectively.

However, the problem with this is that thoughts don’t always translate into actions. Furthermore, we can’t always guarantee that our predictions will come true. In the case of marketing, it would lead to poor campaigns. In the case of the government, it would lead to “wrongly punishing actions.”

3. Focusing on correlation with NO interest in causation is one big problem that seems to be making a monster out of Big Data. Dehumanization of data can only be avoided when we ask “Why?” Then we will be able to create policies that will guarantee fair governance and ensure ethical marketing.

Source: bigdatacompanies.com