Quotes About Data

The information in a message equals the negative of the probabilities that you can predict what will come next every step of the way. The easier you can predict a message, the less information the message contains.

Back in 1933 — Lawdee-me, doesn't that seem like the Dark Ages now? — both von Neumann and Korzybski proposed non-Aristotelian logics, as I mentioned many chapters ago. Von Neumann just allowed for a "maybe" (1/2) between true (1) and false (0); Korzybski extended the "maybe" as far as you want — or as far as data allows you to calculate probabilities.

We, as a species, exist in a world in which exist a myriad of data points. Upon these matrices of points we superimpose a structure and the world makes sense to us. The pattern of the structure originates within our biological and sociological properties.

Do we think at all — about these allegations, or about anything else — or do we just respond mechanically with conditioned prejudices, as the Behaviorists assure us? If we laugh at the gross bigotries of the 13th Century, what do we think about the data that seems flatly impossible to us?

Jan Huizinga, a Dutch sociologist, studied the game element in human behavior, and noted that we live by game rules which often have never risen to the level of conscious speech. In other words, we not only interpret data as we receive it, we also, quickly and unconsciously, fit the data to pre-existing axioms, or game-rules, of our culture (or our sub-culture).

Information, mathematician Norbert Wiener once said, consists of signals that you do not expect. Remember?

Or maybe the universe has wobbles and weirdness indeed. Maybe belief in any system is maintained by forgetting all data that does not fit the system?

You see, the position of this book does not embrace what I call Fundamentalist Copenhagenism — the view that the Copenhagen model says the last word forever. Rather, I consider my position Liberal Copenhagenism. I do not believe any model equals the universe, or universes, but I think alternative models will continue to proliferate, because the data of modern science has grown so complex that many models will cover it.

Theory is no substitute for information," Susan said.

The lion's share of the problems that really bother us don't call for additional technology, theory, philosophy, or data (we're up to our necks in that); instead, the problems call for the ability to change what people do. And when it comes to this particular skill, demand far exceeds supply. Given

To her data analysis was the ugly love child of science and Kafka

I'm told finance doesn't require very complicated math. One guy told me that if you just designed a clean data display, people were amazed. So it's more just advanced programming

doesn't require very complicated math. One guy told me that if you just designed a clean data display, people were amazed.

A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.

I think most organizations have an interest in key recovery, at least with respect to stored data.

We need intelligence services to fight against terrorism, but they have to respect the principles of good relationships between allies and protect personal, confidential data.

There is huge demand for artificial intelligence technologies.

In the past, censorship worked by blocking the flow of information. In the twenty-first century, censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. [...] In ancient times having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore.

At present, people are happy to give away their most valuable asset—their personal data—in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. It's a bit like African and Native American tribes who unwittingly sold entire countries to European imperialists in exchange for colorful beads and cheap trinkets.

This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.

Soon, books will read you while you are reading them.

Capitalism did not defeat communism because capitalism was more ethical, because individual liberties are sacred or because God was angry with the heathen communists. Rather, capitalism won the Cold War because distributed data processing works better than centralised data processing, at least in periods of accelerating technological change.

Precisely because technology is now moving so fast, and parliaments and dictators alike are overwhelmed by data they cannot process quickly enough, present-day politicians are thinking on a far smaller scale than their predecessors a century ago. Consequently, in the early twenty-first century politics is bereft of grand visions. Government has become mere administration. It manages the country, but it no longer leads it.

Data religion now says that your every word and action is part of the great data flow, that the algorithms are constantly watching you and that they care about everything you do and feel. Most people like this very much. For true-believers, to be disconnected from the data flow risks losing the very meaning of life. What's the point of doing or experiencing anything if nobody knows about it, and if it doesn't contribute something to the global exchange of information?