Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think

Humans have always fought to understand the causes behind everything.

But this is starting to change. In the age of big data, we can crunch an incomprehensible amount of information, providing us with invaluable insights about the what rather than the why.

We’re just starting to reap the benefits: tracking vital signs to foresee deadly infections, predicting building fires, anticipating the best moment to buy a plane ticket, seeing inflation in real time and monitoring social media in order to identify trends. But there is a dark side to big data. Will it be machines, rather than people, that make the decisions? How do you regulate an algorithm? What will happen to privacy? Will individuals be punished for acts they have yet to commit?

In this groundbreaking and fascinating book, two of the world’s most respected big data experts reveal the reality of a new world and outline clear and actionable steps that will equip the reader with the tools needed for this next phase of human evolution.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University, following a decade on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School. His book, Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, is considered a seminal work on the ever-presence of data.

Kenneth Cukier is Data Editor of The Economist and writes widely on what is happening in the big data area. His writing on technology, business and economics has appeared in Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Financial Times and elsewhere.