Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and our personal data

Facebook shares are taking it on the chin today as the Cambridge Analytica story unfolds and we learn just how insecure our Facebook data has been. The mainstream press has — as usual — understood only parts of what’s happening here. It’s actually worse than the press is saying. So I am going to take a hack at it here. Understand this isn’t an area where I am an expert, either, but having spent 40+ years writing about Silicon Valley, I’ve picked up some tidbits along the way that will probably give better perspective than what you’ve been reading elsewhere.

Much of this is old news. There are hundreds — possibly thousands […]

By |March 20th, 2018|2018, analytics, Big Data, Government, Politics, Predictions, Privacy and Security|59 Comments
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Prediction #6 — AI comes of age, this time asking the questions, too

Paul Saffo says that communication technologies historically take 30 years or more to find their true purpose. Just look at how the Internet today is different than it was back in 1988. I am beginning to think this idea applies also to new computing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). We’re reading a lot lately about AI and I think 2018 is the year when AI becomes recognized for its much deeper purpose of asking questions, not just finding answers.

Some older readers may remember the AI bubble of the mid-1980s. Sand Hill Road venture capitalists invested (and lost) about $1 billion in AI startups that were generally touted as […]

By |February 8th, 2018|2018, Big Data, cloud computing, Health, Predictions|42 Comments
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Trump’s 2016 Big Data political arms race

Events happen so quickly in the wacky whirlwind world of Donald Trump that it’s hard to react in anything close to real time, but there was an interesting story in the Guardian last weekend that I think deserves some technical context. The Great British Brexit Robbery: How our Democracy was Hijacked is a breathless but well sourced story about how a U.S. billionaire harnessed Big Data to split up the European Union and steal a U.S. Presidential election. It’s an interesting read, but the point I want to make here is that the tale was entirely predictable and if one side hadn’t done it, the other would have. Next […]

By |May 12th, 2017|2017, Big Data, Politics|104 Comments
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Welcome to the Post-Decision Age

undoingThere are more things to talk about than Donald Trump, though I doubt that Donnie agrees with me. But we have to get on with our lives which, at least in my case, means getting on with my reading. Where does all the crap I write here come from but reading, talking to people, and waiting in line at Starbucks? Nowhere else! And if you want to be like me you may choose to read a new book by Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. Of course the book is very good and it’s very well-written and it will tell you a lot about how decisions […]

By |November 28th, 2016|2016, analytics, Big Data, Books|74 Comments
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Thinking about Big Data — Part Three (the final and somewhat scary part)

BigDataIn part one we learned about data and how it can be used to find knowledge or meaning. Part two explained the term Big Data and showed how it became an industry mainly in response to economic forces. This is part three, where it all has to fit together and make sense — rueful, sometimes ironic, and occasionally frightening sense. You see our technological, business, and even social futures are being redefined right now by Big Data in ways we are only now coming to understand and may no longer be able to control.

Whether the analysis is done by a supercomputer or using a hand-written table compiled in 1665 […]

By |July 11th, 2016|Big Data, cloud computing|97 Comments
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