IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019 - 5

EDITORIAL

Jeremy Pitt

Being Human in the
Days/Daze of Big Data

recent Cambridge
University Student
Union Debate considered the motion
that " T his House
believes that Big Data Destroys
What It Means To Be Human."1
While the wording of the motion
is, perhaps, intentionally provocative
for the sake of the debate, in order
to take a position on this proposition, one approach might be to take
it at face value and unpack, to some
extent, what is actually identified by
first, the subject, "Big Data," then the
object, "what it means to be human,"
and finally the action "destroys."
Therefore, beginning with the
subject, "Big Data," it is, of course,
clear that one cannot take a literal
interpretation and the assignment of
a "will to action" to Big Data and its
ability to pose an existential threat to
humanity. The sensing, aggregation,

A

Irresponsible Design is Responsible
for Diminishing Humanity

1

ISTOCK/GREMLIN

Editor's note - Full disclosure: I participated
in the debate, and the entire proceedings can
be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=b3Uw1iu6xaA&feature=share. My opening
contribution that proposed the motion covered
the first half of this article, but I ran out of time
to deliver the second half (which is ironic, given
the content/context).A balanced perspective on
Big Data can be found in [1] (one of whose coauthors spoke against the motion).
2
That's not to say that the image of a warehousesized computer or "The Cloud" becoming sentient,
mobile, and hostile and taking out a few capital
cities, Cloverfield-style, isn't completely unappealing to the wilder margins of one's imagination.
But this scenario is strictly the preserve science
fiction or media hype, is very different from reality,
and serves as an artful distraction. In practice, the
threat lies elsewhere, is altogether more complex,
and is much more insidious - the distraction stops
you thinking about it, while the threat is precisely
that distractive technology is designed to stop you
thinking about it, or indeed anything else for that
matter. But this is getting ahead of the argument.

and storage of billions of people's
personal data, cannot destroy what it
means to be human on its own.2 Like
any technology, there is no intrinsic
good or evil, only a purpose to which
it is put; and that purpose may be
pro-social or anti-social. Technology per se is neither good, nor bad.
Design, on the other hand - design
is never neutral; while pulling the
strings backstage can be a more
efficient and more effective means

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2019.2930260
Date of publication: 30 August 2019

SEPTEMBER 2019

∕

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

of achieving some ends, from executive aggrandizement in the name of
democracy but with the intent to subvert democracy [2], or using the mask
of convenience and symbiotic benefit
to create social and mental entropy
[3]. Technology for Big Data (BD), and
its brother-in-arms Machine Learning (ML), is at the root of, and is the
facilitator of, deliberate string-pulling
design choices [4], [5]. These design
choices are made by people, and so

5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Uw1iu6xaA&feature=share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Uw1iu6xaA&feature=share
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019

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