Wait a minute to talk about the omnipotence of "big data"

"Big Data" is a good thing and the frontier of science, which deserves our serious and active attention, promotion and participation, but it is by no means Harry Potter, and it will not "catch the spirit at once", and it can't conquer the world and be omnipotent.

Looking back at the so-called industrial "wave" of new ideas, theories and technologies in recent years, once introduced into China, the bubbles are always churning, and there are not many classics. Last year was "cloud computing" and this year is "big data". Officials, scholars or media people don't often change some internationally popular new words, so they are embarrassed to speak.

In fact, "big data" is very simple and not mysterious. Massive data that could not be processed before or things that were not treated as data (such as you strolling in a supermarket or smiling at the shop assistant) can be analyzed because of the progress of computer computing ability, such as "cloud computing". For example, there is a data relationship between many people's shopping paths and shopping, so adjusting the layout accordingly is conducive to sales. Some supermarkets in the United States put DVDs and diapers together.

However, it is also a misunderstanding to use "big data" as an all-round way to solve the most difficult problems in the world, from managing cities to eradicating poverty, from stopping terrorist attacks and epidemics to saving the global environment. Human thoughts, personal culture and behavior patterns, and the existence and development of different countries and societies are all very complex, tortuous and unique, so it is obvious that computers can't "speak for themselves digitally". For example, recently, some people in Europe and America advocated using "big data" to analyze people's daily behavior patterns and habits and judge who is going to commit crimes, thus helping to prevent future crimes, which caused great controversy and doubt, and the public was worried about being inexplicably threatened by the lack of judicial procedures.

In fact, trying to explain and guide everything in the world with lines of code and "big data" in a huge database is much like trying to explain and regulate human behavior patterns with biological codes such as genes. It seems to be objective and neutral, but in the final analysis, "big data" will not "speak for itself" no matter how big it is, but designers, analysts and users are in charge. Therefore, "big data" can't make people completely get rid of misinterpretation, estrangement and wrong stereotypes.

moreover, the collection of data will also make "big data" not neutral and comprehensive, and even unfair. For example, instant messaging such as social media is a universal information source for "big data" analysis, where there is undoubtedly a lot of information to be mined, and almost all the examples of foreign mythology "big data" come from this. But at least in our country now and in the future, some "big data" that reflect people's feelings in this way may ignore the "silent majority" and be inaccurate. Over-reliance and superstitious belief in "big data" make it difficult to avoid "data discrimination" against a certain group, and may make major public policies and business decisions based on wrong prejudices.

more importantly, the potential negative effects of "big data" cannot be ignored. The ubiquitous "big data" makes personal privacy nowhere to hide, and even causes more problems. For example, recently, "Big Data" has been used to predict extremely sensitive personal information of Facebook users, such as sexual orientation, race, religion and political views, personality characteristics, intelligence level, happiness or not, addiction drug use, parents' marital status, age and gender. These highly sensitive information are likely to be used by employers, landlords, government departments, educational institutions and private organizations to discriminate against individuals.

Victor, the author of "Big Data Era", said that the information storm brought by big data is changing our life, work and thinking, and big data has opened a major era transformation. That makes sense. However, he believes that the biggest change in the era of big data is to give up the desire for causality and pay attention to correlation instead. That is to say, as long as you know what it is, you don't need to know why. According to the singer, this is Victor's subversion of human thinking practices for thousands of years and a new challenge to human cognition and the way of communicating with the world. But we have doubts: are we still human without asking or knowing "why"?

In fact, Victor has written a new book called "Delete", which tells about the choice of information in the era of big data, saying that forgetting is a virtue. To put it bluntly, it is what should be remembered and what should be forgotten. This shows that no matter when, people are still thinking and "talking", even in the era of "big data", it can be partially expressed in the form of data. Therefore, raising "big data" to an inappropriate height, even magic or bubble, is not only useless for promoting "big data" technology and application, but also makes some new myths and maybe jokes.