Carnegie Council for Ethics in Int Affairs on “Big Data”

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger September 2, 2014 Big Data, Carnegie Council, dark side, IR 0 Comments

Over the last months, the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs has produced two audio broadcasts on the advantages and challenges of the use of Big Data. One broadcast looks at Big Data’s “bright side”, and how it can help inform decision making. The second part looks at Big Data’s dark side, the permanence of the past, and the challenge of an ever more predicted future. Both feature interviews with a number of Big Data experts, including Professor Mayer-Schönberger, are free to listen to, and can also be found on Stitcher.

Excerpt from “Learning with Big Data”

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger March 11, 2014 dark side, excerpt, Learning with Big Data, Quartz 0 Comments

Quartz has just published an extended excerpt from the recently released new ebook by Professor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier – “Learning with Big Data“. The excerpt focuses on the potential dark side of Big Data, and how if misapplied Big Data could trap students into their pasts forever.

Big Data’s potential dark side in education

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger December 23, 2013 Big Data, dark side, education, learning, Learning with Big Data, OEB, THE 0 Comments

Times Higher Education (THE) sat down in December 2013 with Professor Mayer-Schönberger in preparation for ONLINE EDUCA 2013 in Berlin, Europe’s largest meeting of digital learning experts, to discuss the role of Big Data in education, and its potential dark sides. In the interview, Professor Mayer-Schönberger warned of probabilistic predictions being used to filter and select students rather than to improve the context in which they learn, suggesting that this would be a dystopian future for education.

“illuminating and timely”

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger June 11, 2013 Big Data, dark side, NYT, review, surveillance 0 Comments

Michiko Kakutani, one of the publishing world’s most respected book reviewer, has read “Big Data” , the new bestselling book by Professor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier, and really liked it. In her erudite and comprehensive review published in the New York Times, on June 10, 2013, she writes that with big data the nature of surveillance has changed, pointing to one of the fundamental dark sides of big data that “Big Data” talked about.

The Dictatorship of Data

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger May 31, 2013 Big Data, dark side, excerpt, Technology Review 0 Comments

In its latest issue, MIT Technology Review published an excerpt from Professor Mayer-Schönberger’s and Kenneth Cukier’s recent bestseller “Big Data“. The excerpt focuses on one of Big Data’s dark sides, namely that people ascribe Big Data results too much meaning, thereby exposing themselves to what the authors call the “dictatorship of data”.

“Big Data” reviewed

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger March 20, 2013 Big Data, dark side, Guardian, review 0 Comments

Steven Poole reviews new Internet books in the Guardian, including Mayer-Schönberger’s and Cukier’s recent international bestseller “Big Data“, and writes that  they “laudably demolish some of the more ludicrous big-data fantasies”. He is particularly interested in the role of “algorithmists”, as proposed in “Big Data”.