I just got back from the Strata+Hadoop World conference in New York, and amongst the usual talks on the technology and applications of big data and data science ran a new thread: data ethics. DJ Patil, the US government's chief data scientist, made a call for comments on data ethics in his keynote and in a follow-up discussion session. But the talk that still sticks in my head is the keynote by Maciej Ceglowski where he compared Big Data to the nuclear energy industry: a new technology once revered (you could at one time purchase radiumunderpants!) but which is now reviled by the public. It sounds alarmist, but the talk is genuinely thought-provoking, and a warning that if we don't begin to seriously consider the consequences of wide-scale data collection and analysis, our industry risks the same fate. Despite the dark message it's entertainingly delivered, and well worth your 20 minutes.
Something to think about over the weekend. We'll be back on Monday -- see you then.
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