How Data Responsible Are You?

Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Finance, Big Food and Big Data?

In a world of big everything are you data responsible?

And if you are, what make you that way?

People often love conspiracies. They make us feel important. But it’s hard when you find out that you are part of a conspiracy you didn’t even know existed. I mean, no secret passwords and initiation ceremonies. Guys — particularly -need that. And it’s even harder when the conspiracy seems to have no authors except ourselves. Outta my way X-Files fans.

A trope is a recurring or significant theme. Mostly, we use them unconsciously. It’s like a signature in our writing or coding — or even our browsing. One of the most popular tropes on the ‘Net is that ‘Data is the new oil’

The modern world largely runs on oil and money. Oil — in its’ unprocessed form- is the remains of tiny aquatic plants and animals that have been effected by time, pressure and temperature. Money or crypto has no intrinsic value per se, but it grants people access to oil and the many energy-intensive products and services we derive from oil — — together with the status that comes from accessing them.

But data isn’t oil. There are differences. And this is dangerous.

Oil creates physical products. Data creates digital products. Pixels aren’t edible. And while they certainly fuel the market, they don’t fuel your heating system or even the equipment that makes the pixels.

Oil is controlled — largely — by companies and governments. Anybody can create data. Very little specialised equipment is needed, and the cost of replicating and broadcasting is dropping to zero

Oil is standardised and stable in form. Data, unlike oil is -seemingly — infinitely mutable. We can- as Kobe Steel and Volkswagen have shown- say and do anything with data.

With calls for trillions of dollars’ worth of investment into the oil industry. And the wars that have taken place over oil, we do not seem to have got that right yet. Maybe we need a new approach before data becomes exactly like oil.

Now this is not — hopefully- another trope on how we need to manage privacy and anonymity on the ‘Net. There are enough articles on those subjects, and if not, there will be. Nor is it an attempt to suggest that big data is haunted by bias. Everything is haunted by bias otherwise we would not have diversity.

This is a genuine question. And maybe -hopefully- the start of an Infolutionary movement.

What do you think your personal responsibilities to data are? And how do you carry them out?