David Murakami Wood: (in)human error

Abstract

The world of big data operates in a mode beyond old models that were based on concepts like statistical validity and instead works through the recognition of patterns in enormous quantities of data, that are unmanageable for human beings. With enough data, systems will be prone neither to missing patterns through not having enough data nor to the 'overfitting' of imposing a false order on too much. But will this hope be fulfilled? This presentation argues data is inherently both always deficient and apophenic. It outlines and expands upon four propositions, which progress from the more mundane to the more complex and speculative: that the scale of big data will likely always outstrip analytical capabilities, that big data is often not actually useful or used in the ways claimed by advocates; that possibilistic capitalism requires structural insecurity, including error in data, in order to generate value; and finally, that error will persist in big data because error persists and is necessary for the emergence of more complex forms of order, including life itself.

Bio

Educated at Oxford and Newcastle, David Murakami Wood is currently Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Surveillance Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. He is a widely published specialist in the sociology and geography of surveillance and security in cities from a global comparative perspective, with a particular focus on Japan, Brazil, Canada and the UK. He is also a leading organizer in the field of surveillance studies as the Editor-in-Chief of the international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal, Surveillance & Society, the co-Editor of Surveillance Studies: A Reader from Oxford University Press (2017) and Editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Cities and Security from Edward Elgar, as well as a consultant and in-demand media commentator on surveillance issues.