Data Dystopia

摘要

Assessments of the Information Revolution's impact fall along a continuum. On the positive side are visionaries like Bill Tovey and his collaborators who believe that growing access to information, the ability to create networks of like-minded people, and increasing computational power will produce a global human-machine consciousness that will generate better public policy and fundamental improvement in the quality of life around the globe.1 Others, as demonstrated by the title of Robert Mandel's latest monograph, take a less sanguine view of the developing situation. His Information Age manifesto proclaims that, instead of fostering enlightenment, rational choice, and refined situational awareness, today's data deluge fuels confusion and anxiety as policymakers and citizens alike try to separate the wheat from the chaff in the information tsunami. Mandel is no Luddite, but he has identified a key paradox of the Information Age. As sources of information increase in quantity and variety, signal to noise ratios deteriorate, making the development of accurate perceptions and assessments increasingly difficult. Under these circumstances, as Michel Foucault years ago anticipated, all data becomes encapsulated within competing political agendas. Agitprop has replaced information in the data deluge that is drowning both public and private life.