B/B+
A decent (though, at times repetitive) documentary for those of you who are curious about the implications--both good and bad--of Big Data, that is, the accrual of, as they say, "digital exhaust." Big Data produces tension between 1) the boons reaped from the spread and collection of information and 2) the attendant loss of privacy. One must ask, then: How should society through law and policy reconcile these two very important needs?
Skip to 11:05 for an interesting illustration of the type of insight Big Data can offer, where an MIT professor decided to track his infant son's language acquisition through data analysis with a visual granularity of detail. (For more on "The birth of a word.") Deb Roy conducts research at the MIT Media Lab on language, games, and social dynamics at the intersection of A.I. and cognitive psychology. He is also Chief Media Scientist of Twitter.
Skip to 38:00 and watch until 46:00 to get a general sense of what Big Data and A.I. could mean for privacy and democracy in the near future.