The power of data

From facial recognition to automated decision systems, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn’t just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries.

Expanding on the popular course they created at Columbia University, Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones explore how data was created and curated, as well as how new computational techniques developed to contend with that data serve to shape people, ideas, society, military operations, and economies. By understanding the trajectory of data—where it has been and where it might go—Wiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose, with intentionality and purpose.

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