Big data: a revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think

摘要

Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think is a piece on the advancements, uses, and promises of big data. Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, and Kenneth Cukier, data editor at The Economist, argue that big data analytics is a revolutionary tool, a new paradigm of science that can sacrifice accuracy 'in return for knowing the general trend' (p. 35). The book is an optimistic look at what big data can do, but its style is more an introduction to what the authors call datafication (transforming information into quantified format, which is stored and captured easily and cheaply, into valuable, action-driven results) rather than a critical analysis of the growing data analytics field. Big data is indeed a revolution in terms of a huge rise of data usage across business, science, research, and media industries. Yet there are deeper costs to consider when championing big data's advantages.