Let me begin with a disclaimer: Initially I was not convinced that Big Data was going be a big deal.
I've read extensively about it, with lots of very intelligent people insistent that it will. I don't hear a lot of dissent. I was just not sure that automatically qualified as “the truth.”
All great leaps forward have been met with at least some opposition. Not Big Data, though, so I’ve started wondering why. Is it too soon? Have people not awakened yet to the Big Data “issues”? Maybe everyone believes it’s just a technology thing, like a longer-lasting light bulb.
In writing this article I didn’t want to come across as a nihilist. I’ve come to believe that Big Data is the opposite of nihilism; it's the digital representation of the “what does it all mean" questions, which is actually closer to existentialism.
I trust that life really has meaning, and I was curious as to what, if anything, the meaning of Big Data would have meaning. So, with my metaphysical hat on, I went to work.
As humans tend to do, I carry some status quo bias. This means that we are quite effective in searching and finding reasons why it shouldn't work, i.e., “resistance to change”.
There are loads of reasons, of course. It's too big. There's no computer that can work through it. You can't find a holistic meaning. It can only work through some form of sampling. It’s a matter of asking the right questions, as you can’t know the right answers. The list goes on.
These are very reasonable. However, the world has already decided to go for it. As with human flight, it may take some time, but it will happen.
The answers may not be what you would expect. I think that the very reason we are going into Big Data is that we want to find answers that would, at first glance, seem implausible to find using current methods. We want to find the genie in the Big Data lamp.
Let's face it, we've looked everywhere else that seemed plausible, and so now we must look for that last truth that by elimination must be the correct answer, as Sherlock Holmes would put it.
Elementary? Maybe. Time will tell? Maybe it will. Too many questions, just like with Big Data.
Is Big Data the realization of determinism? Are we, in the end, predictable? Is life random, or does it just seem that way? Can our choices be anticipated with mechanical precision? Is there such a thing as free will?
Will Big Data find a use for all those “likes” on Facebook, or mentions on Twitter, articles on blogs, buying patterns, savings patterns, paying patterns, linking them to good customers vs. bad customers, good employees vs. bad employees, good students vs. bad students?
Aren’t we doing that already in some form or another? Will bringing Big Data in allow for a new era of meaningful employment, buying experiences, and student selection, or will we be painfully aware of our idiosyncrasies and how they really affect our fit into our perceived place in the world?
Let’s say that life really is predictable and that we can find models to explain most things. If so, will Big Data love me? I mean, maybe I won’t get picked as a “good customer.” Maybe there is really such a thing as a “bad customer” and I’m it. Wouldn’t that be scary? How would I take it if I were to be discarded a priori from Amazon, for instance?
What if it were a job? Maybe Big Data will tell you that you’re unemployable. What if your kid could not get into college because he posted 27 times on Facebook on the 27th of March, and Big Data knows that this type of behavior indicates he will not fare well academically?
Are we facing a new type of segregation, digital-driven segregation?
I believe that the biggest proof that Big Data is transformational is the effect it will have on how we perceive the human interaction. Also, the effect it may come to have on our very lives.
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