ANALY ZE T H I S !
• Ownership: Digital technology,
data and analytics have given some
companies the ability to turn individual
users’ data into saleable assets and
many others the capacity for improved
decision-making and increased
profitability. Intelligently utilizing
data is something that we typically
celebrate in our profession, but
Davis again challenges this view by
asking some very fundamental and
thought-provoking questions: “Does
our existence itself constitute a
creative act, over which we have
copyrights or other rights associated
with creation? If it does, then how
do those offline rights and privileges,
sanctified by everything from the
Constitution to local, state and federal
laws, apply to the online presence of
that same information?”
• Reputation: Davis hits the nail
on the head when he points out
that, thanks to the ability of data to
be combined and analyzed to drive
inferential and predictive judgments,
“the number of people who can form
an opinion about what kind of person
you are is exponentially larger and
farther removed…” And while these
online reputations are stubbornly
persistent, the accuracy of this
reputational assessment is too
often an afterthought.
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A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G
CALL FOR ACTION
Unsatisfied with merely admiring the
problem, both Lanier and Davis also call
for action. Lanier proposes a technological and marketplace solution to the otherwise inevitable destiny that he believes
digital technology, user data, and business analytics are rapidly leading us into,
problems that are so vividly illustrated
by the case of Amazon. He suggests an
elaborate (though high-level) framework
in which all personal data and creative
works are tagged so as to enable their
owner/creators to capture micropayments
whenever and however their data/works
are utilized. While his proposed remedy
is at this stage sketchy at best, from my
perspective he is to be commended for
engaging us all in a conversation about a
technology-enabled solution to a complex
set of problems that few others are even
willing to acknowledge.
Davis, like Lanier, is a technologist
rather than a Luddite (as he quite rightly
points out, “whereas big data is ethically neutral, the use of big data is not”). In
“Ethics of Big Data,” he strongly encourages organizations that use data extensively (as well as the policy-makers who
attempt to make judgments in support of
social good) to have meaningful discussions about how and why we use data
and what the ethical implications are
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G