Big Data Revolution - Transform Life, Work, Think

A revelatory exploration of the hottest trend in technology and the dramatic impact it will have on the economy, science, and society at large.

Which paint color is most likely to tell you that a used car is in good shape? How can officials identify the most dangerous New York City manholes before they explode? And how did Google searches predict the spread of the H1N1 flu outbreak?

The key to answering these questions, and many more, is big data. “Big data” refers to our burgeoning ability to crunch vast collections of information, analyze it instantly, and draw sometimes profoundly surprising conclusions from it. This emerging science can translate myriad phenomena—from the price of airline tickets to the text of millions of books—into searchable form, and uses our increasing computing power to unearth epiphanies that we never could have seen before. A revolution on par with the Internet or perhaps even the printing press, big data will change the way we think about business, health, politics, education, and innovation in the years to come. It also poses fresh threats, from the inevitable end of privacy as we know it to the prospect of being penalized for things we haven’t even done yet, based on big data’s ability to predict our future behavior.

In this brilliantly clear, often surprising work, two leading experts explain what big data is, how it will change our lives, and what we can do to protect ourselves from its hazards. Big Data is the first big book about the next big thing.

Amazon Exclusive: Q&A with Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger

Q. In discovering big data applications, what was your biggest surprise?
A. It is tempting to say that it was predicting exploding manholes, tracking inflation in real time, or how big data saves the lives of premature babies. But the biggest surprise for us perhaps was the very diversity of the uses of big data, and how it already is changing people’s everyday world. Many people see big data through the lens of the Internet economy, since Google and Facebook have so much data. But that misses the point: big data is everywhere.

Q. Is Big Data then primarily a story about economic efficiency?
A. Big data improves economic efficiency, but that’s only a very small part of the story. We realized when talking to dozens and dozens of big data pioneers that it improves health care, advances better education, and helps predict societal change—from urban sprawl to the spread of the flu. Big data is roaring through all sectors of the economy and all areas of life.

Q. So big data offers only “upside”?
A. Not at all. We are very concerned about what we call in our book “the dark side of big data.” However the real challenge is that the problem is not necessarily where we initially tend to think it is, such as surveillance and privacy. After looking into the potential misuses of big data, we became much more troubled by “propensity” -- that is, big data predictions being used to police and punish. And by the “fetishization” of data that may occur, whereby organizations may blindly defer to what the data says without understanding its limitations.

Q. What can we do about this “dark side”?
A. Knowing about it is the first step. We thought hard to suggest concrete steps that can be taken to minimize and mitigate big data’s risk, and came up with a few ways to ensure transparency, guarantee human free will, and strike a better balance on privacy and the use of personal information. These are deeply serious issues. If we do not take action soon, it might be too late.

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