IT HAS BEEN suggested recently that we are living in a 'quantocracy' - a society defined by the idea that everything must be counted and judged based on how many of something we have accumulated. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, more is usually deemed to be better. This school of thought has quickly infiltrated every aspect of our lives, including conversations around data. Today it is broadly assumed and accepted that the more data we have at our disposal, the more useful - and financially beneficial - it is. Ethical concerns aside, such an assumption sounds reasonable. The potent mix of unlimited data, powerful processing power and deep pockets should, in theory, enable us to understand every challenge facing society, and this would make the world an easier place to navigate. In practice, though, things look very different.
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