How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms by Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones.
Chris is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the Chief Data Scientist at The New York Times. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton in theoretical physics, and in addition, is a founding member of the executive committee of the Data Science Institute, and of the Department of Systems Biology. Chris is also co-founder and co-organizer of hackNY.
Matthew Jones is a professor of History at Princeton. He holds a Master in philosophy from Cambridge University and Ph.D. from Harvard. While at Columbia, Matthew and Chris taught a class regarding data. Their work is tracing the history of data back to the 18th century. At that time European states began manipulating physical resources.
They see the rise of data and early statistical methods were indeed used to justify eugenics. In fact, this misled some in the late 1800s to believe data could quantify race differences. Unsurprisingly those same European countries used data to develop military and industrial applications.
Data never was the new oil
The widespread collection and analysis of data only begin during the 1950s. In this timeframe we see the introduction of neural networks and algorithms. As the authors write, this system frequently serves the interests of just a few major companies rather than the very people on whom it relies for the information.
However, their work ends today in our current timeframe where algorithms are now manipulating personal information as a commodity. This is now sold to data brokers. Their view is that data has always been a tool and a weapon in arguing for what is true while defending power. They also show the impact of the modern internet and e-commerce, the enormous rise in data collection and the evolution of data science. In fact they also document how state surveillance systems in China and the UK are collecting incredible amounts of personal data.
Finally, data privacy
As a result, Matthew and Chris are showing how important privacy and democracy must rely upon private data. This leads to their recommendations for stronger regulations of data companies and who controls personal data.
In conclusion, this book explores the relationship between the ideas and explorations of data. This is both amazing and intriguing and certainly one book you should be reading.