The biggest problem with big data

Learn and Talk III – Lesson 12

Preview
Words Expressions

put to shame
1. loom /luːm/ [verb]
to appear as a large, often frightening or unclear shape or object
short-sightedness
2. shrivel /ˈʃrɪv.əl/ [verb]
wither, as with a loss of moisture at the expense of

3. cull /kʌl/ [verb] be better at

look for and gather
let go of
4. instil /ɪnˈstɪl/ [verb]
enter drop by drop

5. scepticism /'skeptɪsɪz(ə)m/ [noun]

the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge

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 Learn and Talk III – Lesson 12

Article

The biggest problem with big data

You may be familiar with the statistic that 90% of the world’s data
was created in the last few years. It’s true. One of the first mentions
of this particular formulation I can find dates back to May 2013, but
the trend remains remarkably constant. Indeed, every two years for
about the last three decades the amount of data in the world has
increased by about 10 times – a rate that puts even Moore’s law of
doubling processor power to shame.
One of the problems with such a rate of information increase is that
the present moment will always loom far larger than even the
recent past.

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 Learn and Talk III – Lesson 12

This isn’t a perfect analogy with global data, of course. For a start,
much of the world’s data increase is due to more sources of
information being created by more people, along with far larger and
more detailed formats. But the point about proportionality stands. If
you were to look back over a record like the one above, or try to
analyse it, the more distant past would shrivel into meaningless
insignificance. How could it not, with so many times less information
available?
Here’s the problem with much of the big data currently being
gathered and analysed. The moment you start looking backwards to
seek the longer view, you have far too much of the recent stuff and
far too little of the old. Short-sightedness is built into the structure,
in the form of an overwhelming tendency to over-estimate short-
term trends at the expense of history.

The same tends to be true of most complex phenomena in real

life: stock markets, economies, the success or failure of
companies, war and peace, relationships, the rise and fall of
empires. Short-term analyses aren’t only invalid – they’re
actively unhelpful and misleading.
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 Learn and Talk III – Lesson 12

What to do? This isn’t just a question of being better at

preserving old data – although this wouldn’t be a bad idea,
given just how little is currently able to last decades rather than
years. More importantly, it’s about determining what is worth
preserving in the first place – and what it means meaningfully
to cull information in the name of knowledge.

What’s needed is something that I like to think of as “intelligent

forgetting”: teaching our tools to become better at letting go of
the immediate past in order to keep its larger continuities in
view. It’s an act of curation akin to organising a photograph
album – albeit with more maths. When are two million
photographs less valuable than two thousand? When the larger
sample covers less ground; when the questions that can be
asked of it are less important; when the level of detail on offer
instils not useful scepticism, but false confidence.

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 Learn and Talk III – Lesson 12

Discussion

1. According to the article, what is the biggest problem with

big data?
2. What are the functions of big data for your daily life?
3. How should people take advantage of big data?

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 Learn and Talk III – Lesson 12

Further Reading

Full Text: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160605-the-trouble-with-big-data-its-called-the-recency-bias

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