English | EN Big Data Column: I donu0026#x27;t want to know
Jun 16, 2012
Information can be disgusting, confusing, horrifying, hilarious, confronting, misleading, convincing, arousing, depressing. If we keep on talking about Big Data in the sense of bits and bytes, neutral packages that create new understanding we are missing the point. We will never be able to understand what the ultimate impact of Big Data is when we carve out the human component: what it does, the impact, the emotion. Us people.
After reading many articles and books on Big Data and working on the first paper on the topic, one idea keeps bugging me, and that is the assumption that it is good to know everything. Big Data prophets talk about machine learning, better insights, better filters and better algorithms in order to know everything. I know that they are right, because that’s progress. We learn more, discover, invent and solve problems. So help me on this one, because I’m confused. I don’t think that they are right.
There’s a lot to be known that I don’t want to know:
– Did my parents have sex last night for instance is something I’m definitely not want to know.
– Did the chicken that is in my soup suffer a lot the moment it was killed?
– What kind of bacteria make my socks smell badly?
I don’t want to know because this kind of information disgusts me. Normally we don’t talk about data in the sense of disgust, most of the time we talk about ”abundance”, the enormous amount of data. Or we talk about “data points” or “bits and bytes”. But seldom the focus is on its impact, what is does to you and me emotionally when confronted with these stimuli, or focus on the possible actions based on our emotional state. Panic for instance. A brilliant example of how information can lead to panic, although there is no reason for that panic, is shown in this little video of Monthy Pyton. It’s called “How to irritate people”. John Clease is the captain of an airplane that talks through the intercom saying that there is” absolutely no cause for alarm”, and later he adds that “the wings are nor on fire”. Correct data, false interpretation.
I don’t want to be told that the wings are not on fire when they are not on fire, because when someone tells me that I’m thinking exactly the opposite: there must be something wrong.
Information can be disgusting, confusing, horrifying, hilarious, cofronting, misleading, convincing, arousing, depressing. If we keep on talking about Big Data in the sense of bits and bytes, neutral packages that create new understanding we are missing the point. We will never be able to understand what the ultimate impact of Big Data is when we carve out the human component: what it does, the impact, the emotion. Us people.
Big Data is a behavioral science, or at least should be. When we begin to acknowledge that, we will also see more appreciation for the fact that we don’t want to know everything. We are humans, and mysteries, taboos and privacy is something we cherish. There is nothing wrong with a secret, absolutely nothing! The fact that Santa Claus doesn’t exist is meant to be a secret. What would happen if a 5 year old starts his iPad Santa Claus App that would link him to the truth, data that tells him “Pssst….Your mom and dad are lying, Santa Claus is fake. And by the way they have sex every Saturday morning before they sit at the breakfast table”.
You tell me. Is it good to plead for boundaries in what we should want to know or want to keep a secret? Or am I making a fundamental mistake in my reasoning?
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