Abstract
The explosion of data grows at a rate of roughly five trillion bits a second, giving rise to greater urgency in conceptualizing the infosphere (Floridi 2011) and understanding its implications for knowledge and public policy. Philosophers of technology and information technologists alike who wrestle with ontological and epistemological questions of digital information tend to emphasize, as Floridi does, information as our new ecosystem and human beings as interconnected informational organisms, inforgs at home in ambient intelligence. But the linguistic and conceptual representations of Big Data—the massive volume of both structured and unstructured data—and the real world practice of data-mining for patterns and meaningful interpretation of evidence reveal tension and ambiguity in the bold promise of data analytics. This paper explores the tacit epistemology of the rhetoric and representation of Big Data and suggests a richer account of its ambiguities and the paradox of its real world materiality. We argue that Big Data should be recognized as manifesting multiple and conflicting trajectories that reflect human intentionality and particular patterns of power and authority. Such patterns require attentive exploration and moral appraisal if we are to resist simplistic informationist ontologies of Big Data, and the subtle forms of control in the political ecology of Big Data that undermine its promise as transformational knowledge.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adobe Systems Inc. (2012). Adobe marketing cloud—Marketing myths debunked. Retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-marketing.html.
Anderson, C. (2008). The end of theory: The deluge of data makes the scientific method obsolete. Wired. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory.
Arbesman, S. (2013). Stop hyping big data and start paying attention to ‘long data’. Wired. Retrieved January 29, 2013, from http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/01/forget-big-data-think-long-data.
Basulto, D. (2012). Meet the urban datasexual. Big Think. Retrieved April 16, 2012, from http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/meet-the-urban-datasexual.
Borgmann, A. (1984). Technology and the character of contemporary life: A philosophical inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Brown, I. (2013). Will NSA revelations lead to the balkanization of the Internet? The Guardian. Retrived November 1, 2013, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/nsa-revelations-balkanisation-internet.
Davis, K. (2012). Ethics of Big Data: Balancing risk and innovation. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.
Feenburg, A. (1999). Technology and meaning. In R. Scharff & V. Dusek (Eds.), Philosophy of technology: The technological condition (2003). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Feenberg, A. (2010). Ten paradoxes of technology. Techné. Retrieved December 3, 2014, from https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/paradoxes.pdf.
Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Floridi, L. (2011). The philosophy of information. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Glantz, J. (2012a). Power, pollution and the Internet. New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-of-energy-belying-industry-image.html.
Glantz, J. (2012b). Data barns in a farm town, gobbling power and flexing muscle. New York Times. Retrieved September 23, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html.
Harding, S. (Ed.). (2011). The postcolonial science and technology studies reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hardy, Q. (2013). Big data’s little brother: Start-ups are mining hyperlocal information for global insight. New York Times. Retrieved November 10, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/technology/gathering-more-data-faster-to-produce-more-up-to-date-information.html?_r=0.
Hofstader, D. R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach. New York: Basic Books.
IBM Corporation. (2014). What is big data? Big data at the speed of business. Retrieved from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/what-is-big-data.html.
Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Ihde, D. (2012). Experimental phenomenologies: Multistabilities. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Kline, S. (1985). What is technology? In R. Scharff & V. Dusek (Eds.), Philosophy of technology: The technological condition (2003). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lohr, S. (2012). How big data became so big. New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/business/how-big-data-became-so-big-unboxed.html?_r=0.
Marcuse, H. (1991). One dimensional man. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
McAfee, A. & Brynjolfsson, E. (2012). Big data: The management revolution. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved October, 2012, from http://hbr.org/2012/10/big-data-the-management-revolution/ar/1?cm_mmc=SocialHub-_-3271-_–_-5060270310145972803utm_source=socialhub&goback=%2Egde_4575298_member_170973852.
Meinrath, S. (2013). We can’t let the internet become balkanized. Slate. Retrieved October, 2013, from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/10/internet_balkanization_may_be_a_side_effect_of_the_snowden_surveillance.html.
Mills, M. (2013). Bravo New York times for discovering reality in ‘Power, Pollution, and The Internet’. Forbes. Retrieved September 25, 2013, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/markpmills/2012/09/25/bravo-new-york-times-for-discovering-reality-in-power-pollution-and-the-internet/.
Morozov, E. (2012). Google should not choose right and wrong. Financial Times. Retrieved December 23, 2012, from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed17b556-49ee-11e2-a7b1-00144feab49a.html#axzz2LhEG0jpl.
Murray, C. (2012). Global burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors study 2010: Executive summary. The Lancet. Retrieved December 13, 2014, from http://www.thelancet.com/themed/global-burden-of-disease.
Ricoeur, P. (1973). Creativity in Language. Philosophy Today. Retrieved November 15, 2014, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/24869776/Paul-Ricoeur-Creativity-in-Language.
Silver, N. (2012). The signal and the noise. New York: Penguin Press.
Smolan, R., & Erwitt, J. (2012). The human face of data. Sausalito, CA: Against all Odds Production.
Swanson, B. (2007). The coming exaflood. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 20, 2007, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116925820512582318.html.
The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy. (2012). Obama Administration unveils “Big Data” initiative: Announces $200 million in new R&D investments. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/big_data_press_release.pdf.
Thorp, J. (2012). Big data is not the new oil. Harvard Business Review Blog Network. Retrieved November 30, 2012, from http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/data_humans_and_the_new_oil.html.
Verbeek, P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weinberger, D. (2012). To know but not understand. The Atlantic. Retrieved January 3, 2012, from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/to-know-but-not-understand-david-weinberger-on-science-and-big-data/250820/#.
Winner, L. (1986). The whale and the reactor: A search for limits in an age of high technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Portmess, L., Tower, S. Data barns, ambient intelligence and cloud computing: the tacit epistemology and linguistic representation of Big Data. Ethics Inf Technol 17, 1–9 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-014-9357-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-014-9357-2