BIG DATA!

CorkCon 2016Anthony Behan

This started with a question:

How does big data change the state?

Which became

How does technology change politics?

‘Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day.’

Douglas Adams

Communication is a form of life.

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951 1953

Ergo…Technology is a form of life.

Cyborgs are enhanced humansBirds have nests, spiders have webs, and we have our technology.

(What does it mean to be human? To be whole?)

Machines are like humans, but in some respects better

Does it matter that those with whom we interact are actually human?

Technology has changed people.Personal Communications and Interactions have Changed.

The way we speak to each other, communicate with one another, buy and exchange stuff, express ourselves – all that has changed now.

Marshall McLuhan, July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980

The medium

is the

message1964

"we live mythically and integrally ... but continue to think in the old, fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age."

Loyalty to family, community, nation, geography - dissipates

Emotional, Personal Connections and Communities are Distributed, Decentralised, Global.

Politics Changes.Politics is about power, and communications, and relationships, and social

infrastructure. If communications changes, politics must change. Right?

Politics, and the State, is Broken.These people are not us. The State is not us. The State is illegitimate.

So, here’s a thought.

Why don’t the machines run the government?

We’d trust them more than we do people, right?

What scares you most?

The nuclear bomb?

Or the guy riding the nuclear bomb?

Can machines – artefacts – have a politics?

Long Island Parkway. Low Overpass. Truck Smashes into it. Why?

There may be an answer in Big Data Machines

Monitor everything, understand everyone’s behaviour, everywhere.

People, and the internet of things

Using that data, create, adapt, and

infer laws that it is likely

people will accept.

People, and the internet of things

Monitor everything, understand everyone’s

behaviour, everywhere.

Measure / Judge them.

Enforce the law.

So let’s ask the question about speed cameras.Traffic monitoring.Mass surveillance.

Why don’t we do it everywhere? All the time?

What are we afraid of?

The Politics of Automation: Big Data Machines and the Prosecution of State BureaucracyAn assessment of automated law enforcement in Ireland, and the barriers to extended automation

Anthony Behan

October 2016

MSc by ResearchDepartment of Government

National University of Ireland, Cork

Thank You!