Social scientists are currently attempting to create a technological wonder which has never before been seen. They are trying to collect massive data from the Internet and the digital trails left by cell phones, in order to mathematically and psychologically predict the future.
The more optimistic scientists believe that all the data will for the first time reveal a pattern in human nature, which will turn the population into a predictable movement - similar to chemical or physical changes in science. Thomas Malone, the director of the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, states that “we have vastly more detailed and richer kinds of data available as well as predictive algorithms to use, and that makes possible a kind of prediction that would have never been possible before.”
The government is fully in support of the whole operation. This summer, a small intelligence agency began scanning the Internet in over 21 Latin countries looking for "big data". These first steps of the three year project are being funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which is part of the office of the director of national intelligence. This automated data engine will focus on collecting its information from public data sources such as Web search queries, blog entries, Internet traffic flow, financial market indicators, traffic web cams, and changes in Wikipedia articles.
So far there have only been small attempts at digging through social media. For example, HP researchers used Twitter in order to predict box office revenues for Hollywood movies. The results were accurate. Later that year, the National Science Foundation approved funds for this kind of research in order to predict earthquake damage in real time. “Big data allows one to move beyond inference and statistical significance and move toward meaningful and accurate analyses,” said Norman Nie, a political scientist who was a pioneering developer of statistical tools for social scientists.
There are however some scientists who are skeptical towards the whole idea. Remembering the Pentagon’s ill-fated Project Camelot in the 1960’s, which was cancelled due to widespread criticism by scholars. Project Camelot involved collecting information in Chile, looking for any violent changes. However, the unethical collection of data led to an uproar among the social scientists, which claimed that the process went against their beliefs.
Recently there have been fewer and fewer scientists opposing the idea. The ones who are accepting the project claim that the new technologies will have a positive effect. “The result will be much better understanding of what is going on in the world, and how well local governments are handling the situation,” said Sandy Pentland, a computer scientist at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory. “I find this all very hopeful rather than scary, because this is perhaps the first real opportunity for all of humanity to have transparency in government.”
Advocates of privacy rights argue that public data and the related methods developed in IARPA’s new project will ultimately turn into clandestine “total information” operations. "These techniques are double-edged," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group based in Washington. "They can be used as easily against political opponents in the United States as they can against threats from foreign countries."
Aside from the various skeptical social scientists, there are also the computer specialists. Many of them are in doubt that the Web search engines will be able to provide the needed data to support the whole operation. They argue that while searches collect information from everywhere, they do not improve the information. In a study where scientists tried to predict the flu, what was found on the web was nothing more than what was already present in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ultimately, scientists would like to discern behavioral laws that match the laws of physical science. But to many, this idea seems far away from our technological grasp.
The more optimistic scientists believe that all the data will for the first time reveal a pattern in human nature, which will turn the population into a predictable movement - similar to chemical or physical changes in science. Thomas Malone, the director of the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, states that “we have vastly more detailed and richer kinds of data available as well as predictive algorithms to use, and that makes possible a kind of prediction that would have never been possible before.”
The government is fully in support of the whole operation. This summer, a small intelligence agency began scanning the Internet in over 21 Latin countries looking for "big data". These first steps of the three year project are being funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which is part of the office of the director of national intelligence. This automated data engine will focus on collecting its information from public data sources such as Web search queries, blog entries, Internet traffic flow, financial market indicators, traffic web cams, and changes in Wikipedia articles.
So far there have only been small attempts at digging through social media. For example, HP researchers used Twitter in order to predict box office revenues for Hollywood movies. The results were accurate. Later that year, the National Science Foundation approved funds for this kind of research in order to predict earthquake damage in real time. “Big data allows one to move beyond inference and statistical significance and move toward meaningful and accurate analyses,” said Norman Nie, a political scientist who was a pioneering developer of statistical tools for social scientists.
There are however some scientists who are skeptical towards the whole idea. Remembering the Pentagon’s ill-fated Project Camelot in the 1960’s, which was cancelled due to widespread criticism by scholars. Project Camelot involved collecting information in Chile, looking for any violent changes. However, the unethical collection of data led to an uproar among the social scientists, which claimed that the process went against their beliefs.
Recently there have been fewer and fewer scientists opposing the idea. The ones who are accepting the project claim that the new technologies will have a positive effect. “The result will be much better understanding of what is going on in the world, and how well local governments are handling the situation,” said Sandy Pentland, a computer scientist at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory. “I find this all very hopeful rather than scary, because this is perhaps the first real opportunity for all of humanity to have transparency in government.”
Advocates of privacy rights argue that public data and the related methods developed in IARPA’s new project will ultimately turn into clandestine “total information” operations. "These techniques are double-edged," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group based in Washington. "They can be used as easily against political opponents in the United States as they can against threats from foreign countries."
Aside from the various skeptical social scientists, there are also the computer specialists. Many of them are in doubt that the Web search engines will be able to provide the needed data to support the whole operation. They argue that while searches collect information from everywhere, they do not improve the information. In a study where scientists tried to predict the flu, what was found on the web was nothing more than what was already present in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ultimately, scientists would like to discern behavioral laws that match the laws of physical science. But to many, this idea seems far away from our technological grasp.
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