Should We Kill Big Data?
Big data as a term has been around for a while, it has a deliberately broad reach, including everything from basic database management through to AI and self driving cars. It is so ‘catch all’ that we can dedicate a channel to it that has talked about everything from animal conservation through to the rise of robot rights.
This has had some real benefits for the wider media who can use it as a catch all phrase rather than needing to drill down to the complex sub-elements. However, as time has gone on and hostility to the idea has become gradually more prevalent, should we start looking at ways to put the term to bed?
Bloomberg’s resident anti-big data advocate Cathy O’Neil, has penned an article ‘Do You Trust Big Data? Try Googling the Holocaust’ which essentially decries how some companies use data. At the top of her hitlist is Google, which is referred to as one of the ‘big data companies’ and O’Neil points to several examples of how Google have sorted their results and put misleading pages towards the top, with controversial topics like Holocaust denial and racist crime appearing towards the top of results.
O’Neil makes some other interesting points too in her well publicized ‘Weapons of Math Destruction’ theory of algorithms that aren’t fair, such as those in the education system and in policing that focus on minorities and the poor. However, what she discusses in her talks on this matter is big data in the catch all sense. But this is not what big data is, in the same way that Google is not a ‘big data company’ and blaming search results on big data isn’t a fair statement to make. It is the equivalent of tarring an entire group by the actions of a few individuals. After all, there are mechanics who aren’t too good at fixing cars and make them more dangerous to drive, but nobody says that the automobile repair industry as a whole is a bad thing.
The problem with referring to everything data related as ‘big data’ is that it makes people scared of the good uses of it.
