How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms

Wiggins, Chris; Jones, Matthew L.

ISBN 10: 1324006730 / ISBN 13: 9781324006732

Editore: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Codice articolo G1324006730I4N00

Riassunto:

From facial recognition—capable of checking people into flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform who gets loans and who receives bail, 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, from the census enshrined in the US Constitution to the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search.Expanding on the popular course they created at Columbia University, Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones illuminate the ways in which data has long been used as a tool and a weapon in arguing for what is true, as well as a means of rearranging or defending power. They explore how data was created and curated, as well as how new mathematical and computational techniques developed to contend with that data serve to shape people, ideas, society, military operations, and economies. Although technology and mathematics are at its heart, the story of data ultimately concerns an unstable game among states, corporations, and people. How were new technical and scientific capabilities developed; who supported, advanced, or funded these capabilities or transitions; and how did they change who could do what, from what, and to whom?Wiggins and Jones focus on these questions as they trace data’s historical arc, and look to the future. By understanding the trajectory of data—where it has been and where it might yet go—Wiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose, with intentionality and purpose.

Informazioni sull?autore: Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the New York Times’s chief data scientist. He resides in New York City.<br /><br />Matthew L. Jones is a professor of history at Columbia University and has been a Guggenheim Fellow. He resides in New York City.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: How Data Happened: A History from the Age of...
Casa editrice: W. W. Norton & Company
Data di pubblicazione: 2023
Legatura: Hardcover
Condizione: Very Good
Condizione sovraccoperta: No Jacket