Good book.Must have been one of the early books on how the world is undergoing huge change with Big data.
The authors talk about the shift from small data or sampling to big data primarily due to the fact that collection of data has become that much easier now in the digitised and connected world. The techniques which were evolved to come to conclusions on correlations based on a sample but representative data are no longer needed since the full data "n" has become available in the new digitised world. The authors talk of collection of data for some purpose and finding various other uses for the humungous amount of data available. They talk of data collectors, data interpreters and data users. Data collectors who sold data found that they had sold short and started developing expertise or getting in house expertise to process data and interpret data.
The authors talk of a shift from causative mindset to a mindset of just recognising the correlation and acting on it based on big data. A case of what rather than why ?
Corrrelations developed help in optimising on say on an insurance premia, on factors that could cause accidents,on companies like walmart acting or stocking based on sale of a specific product conncted to some event and so on.Big data has potential use in crime prevention,disease prevention and so on
Big data has started contributing significantly in optimising and making our actions focussed on likely outcomes ( with a higher probability ) with much little wasted efforts and so on.
The authors also point out to the fact that with so much disparate information available on various plarforsm, stringing them together and finding out a whole lot of information of specific individuals is not very difficullt. Privacy is the biggest casualty in this, The authors besides talking about the need for measures to protect privacy also talk about the dangers of bias and punitive action being initiated based on correlations , say the likelihood of someone committing a crime etc. Big data even with none of us realsing could start playing God. The authors talk of thye need to be wary of that aspect also
The authors have brought the major aspect of how life has ben changing and how it would change further with Big data.
I am sure that more such books with a lot of specifi examples of how big data has benefitted us would have come out
The authors also talk of the limitration of big data in as much as it is based on existing tastes and factors and not what is likely to happen in sat consumer tastes. Big data could not have given rise to a Fird car or an Apple iphone or an ipod.
