Communications of the ACM
Considering Data's Effect on Society
New technologies that enable social phenomena to be tracked down to the individual level are creating what one researcher called "a new era of social physics."
Credit: Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS
A group of academics, business executives, and journalists recently met at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Media Lab to discuss the concept of data-driven societies.
MIT professor Alex Pentland gave a presentation titled "Reinventing Society in the Wake of Big Data," which focused on the fact that the most important data becoming available is information about people's behavior. He says the specific behavioral data could lead to changing how we think about society and how a society is governed.
Pentland notes that new technologies enable researchers to track social phenomena down to the individual level and the social and economic connections among individuals. He says the ability to monitor such tiny patterns means "we're entering a new era of social physics."
Former U.S. Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt said at the meeting that a data-driven society could make government more efficient, and help it transfer income to people who would benefit the most. However, he wonders if data-driven decisions would be politically acceptable.
From The New York Times
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