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Humanist Archives: April 10, 2020, 7:56 a.m. Humanist 33.749 - Big Data and Truth

                  Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 749.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
                   Hosted by King's Digital Lab
                       www.dhhumanist.org
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    [1]    From: Jeremy Hunsinger 
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.743: Big Data and Truth (17)

    [2]    From: Michelle Doran 
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.745: Big Data and Truth, continued (60)


--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2020-04-09 12:56:56+00:00
        From: Jeremy Hunsinger 
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.743: Big Data and Truth

My two cents on big data. Data like all forms of information such as
capta, inventa, acta, etc., has no necessary relation to truth (except
maybe for extreme positivists or certain types of naturalists). Truth
comes in the pragmatic consensus building of knowledge.  Big data is
an enterprise not of truth creation but of trust building, it doesn't
matter so much that the data maps onto 'truth', but that it provides
legitimations or 'trust' for actions or inaction. So the challenge of
ethics is not really in the data or big data, it is in the
manipulation of the data, it is in human action that is ethical and
the mediation of that human action should be sort of moot.  If you are
using big data to defraud, illegitimately enrich or empower, that
should be the issue more than the 'big data' mediation of the issue.
Same with AI/Machine learning, online teaching, etc.  However, we can
build unethical systems and those can act unethically too, and those
need changed, but some parts of big data are inherently unethical.



--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2020-04-09 09:35:34+00:00
        From: Michelle Doran 
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.745: Big Data and Truth, continued

Dear Willard,

I light of your comments relating to big data, I think that the deliverables of
the KPLEX project may be of interest to you and to the members of this list.
The now complete project examined three key challenges to the knowledge creation
capacity of big data approaches: the manner in which data that are not digitised
or shared become 'hidden' from aggregation systems; the fact that data is human
created, and lacks the objectivity often ascribed to the term; the subtle ways
in which data that are complex almost always become simplified before they can
be aggregated. The project deliverables are available to read here:
https://kplex-project.eu/deliverables/

Regards,
Michelle

Dr Michelle Doran
Research Fellow,
TCD Centre for Digital Humanities,
Trinity Long Room Hub,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2,
Ireland.
Ext. 4274
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An Dr Michelle Doran
Comhalta Taighde
Lárionad Daonnachtaí Digiteacha Choláiste na Tríonóide
Mol an tSeomra Fhada,
Coláiste na Tríonóide
Baile Átha Cliath 2
Éire.
Folíne 4271


________________________________
From: Humanist 
Sent: Thursday 9 April 2020 10:05
To: publish-liv@humanist.kdl.kcl.ac.uk 
Subject: [Humanist] 33.745: Big Data and Truth, continued

                  Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 745.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
                   Hosted by King's Digital Lab
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2020-04-08 20:20:57+00:00
        From: Marlene Manoff 
        Subject: Big data unexamined

Or, as Lisa Gitelman puts it, "'Raw Data' is an Oxymoron"
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/raw-data-oxymoron


Marlene Manoff



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