Today's clamor around big data
will one day subside. Like the love affair in Cole Porter's Just One of Those Things, it is ''too
hot not too cool down''. It is a sort of
process; vendors and media builds things
up and then break things down again. Take as example a recent New York Times
story entitled "Big (Bad) Data." The item revolves around the case of
A&E's Duck Dynasty star Phil
Robertson. His antigay comments in a magazine article went viral on Twitter,
and A&E execs, as if in the thrall of big data analytics, suspended him
from the show. Then, the Twitter sentiments rebounded, big data was
recalibrated, and Robertson was back in. The Times' story suggests the first
response was wrong, the second right. But time may prove otherwise. This episode
in review is hardly an indictment, although that is how the writer or his
editors would have it. The advent of big
data does not obviate the need for exes to have full liberal educations with philosophy,
ethology, ethics and economics studies under their belts. The execs of A&E give vent to the old
saw: If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
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