Why I Don't Want To Live In Dataland

[FarCenter]

Dataland -- a place where your activities are tracked 24/7 -- is almost upon us, say some researchers. Popular myths stress the advantages of a data-driven society, but there's a dark side.

Despite my recent rant about the shortcomings of analytics, perhaps it's a good thing that those shortcomings exist. I, for one, am not ready to live in Dataland.

In Dataland, we're tracked 24/7. What we eat, when we sleep, the real-time state of our body and minds -- all of it is monitored and available for analysis. When we walk from one room to another, the temperature changes to shift energy usage to the most efficient level possible. When we leave our homes, we are guided away from trouble spots. We receive only job or credit offers that will match our lifestyles.

Utopia or dystopia? We may find out soon. "[Dataland] is a lot closer to reality than you might know," said Kate Crawford, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, who spun the story of Dataland Wednesday at MIT Technology Review's Emerging Technologies conference in Cambridge, Mass.

http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/news/big-data-analytics/why-i-dont-want-to-live-in-dataland/240162558

[DeadEyeDyck]

1. Sadly, anything that can be used for good

is usually used for evil.

This is not creating the fear that it deserves.
Remember, there will come a day when some really bad actors are going to be in control of that data.