Description

A sweeping history of data and its technical political and ethical impact on our world

From facial recognitioncapable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residentsto automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail each of us moves through a world determined by dataempowered algorithms But these technologies didnt 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 By understanding the trajectory of datawhere it has been and where it might yet goWiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose with intentionality and purpose