Big Data, Actionable Information, Scientific Knowledge and the Goal of Control
Abstract
Big Data is control. Consider Technological “watching” (veillance). Whether it is lists of banned books, files and interrogation reports on arrested people, or algorithms searching massive databases, it isn’t about voyeurism, but instrumentalist power. Established distinctions between data, information, and knowledge from computer science are a helpful sorting device for understanding why some forms of Big Data are more effective for control than others. Political struggles and corporate hype over veillance Big Data obscures how unuseful it has been so far, and how different “data” of any sort is from actionable information (intelligence). Even then, action doesn’t promise effectiveness. Affordances, agency, network architectures, semantics and the political economy determine effective communication and control. Thls is clear from the role of Big Data in neuroscience, which is making great instrumentalist progress. Specific, rigorous knowledge is much more powerful, and dangerous, than data of any size or information, no matter its origin.
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