The Social Dilemma in Big Data
The documentary The Social Dilemma examines the huge effect that social media platforms have over society and that a few engineers’ decisions on how each platform performs and looks that it can impact billions of people around the world. Specifically, the documentary focuses on the effects that social media has on people such as the dangers of addiction, depression, and even suicide that can arise from the overuse of social media. The Social Dilemma has interviewees who used to work for those social media platforms but due to ethical reasons, they have left to talk about different topics in the documentary related to social media such data mining, technology addiction, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and surveillance capitalism that the platforms use to generate advertising revenue and keep their users engaged.
The way the documentary portrays how social media can affect someone is through a dramatization centered around Ben, who becomes addicted to social media due to the manipulation tactics by the platforms such as giving him recommendations for things that he would like to keep him addicted. Another aspect of social media that the documentary dives into is the prevalence of fake news and the old adage of “you can’t believe everything you read on the internet” has been turned on its head due to how fake news is propagated on social media.
When I read the topic of Big data, what comes into my mind is how I adjust to the rapid advancement of social media technology in storing data. One of the easiest explanations for big data to understand is the collection and use of information from multiple sources to make better decisions. Big data can be said as a concept about our ability to collect, analyze, and understand a large amount of data that comes every day. Big data analytics and data sciences have brought a breakthrough in the current world by introducing models that bring long-term benefits to businesses and industries. With the help of in-depth explanations, concepts, and ideas regarding machine learning and artificial intelligence, beginners can develop basic AI models that are capable of making accurate predictions and data insights with the best performance.
In Critical Questions for Big Data, Boyd & Crawford asks “Will large-scale search data help us create better tools, services, and public goods?” Or “Will it usher in a new wave of privacy incursions and invasive marketing?” By reviewing possible challenges, performances, and implementations of artificial intelligence, neural networks, big data analytics, and deep learning, applications of AI can be developed to improve workflow and system efficiency as well. Moreover, industries and businesses can greatly promote their sales, profits, and performance by considering the techniques and methods.
