Ethical Challenges: What we ought not to do with Big Data
, How can digital truth serum improve our lives?
(1) The truth helps
o There is comfort in knowing that you are not alone in your insecurities and
embarrassing behaviour.
o It’s nice to know others are insecure about their bodies too.
o Google data can tell us how right our teachers were when encouraging us to put our
hands up in class to ask questions: plenty of basic, sub-profound questions lurk in
other peoples minds too.
o Modern self-help quote: “Never compare your Google searches to everyone else’s
social media posts”.
(2) Reaching out!
• Digital truth serum alerts us to people who are suffering.
• Enables experts to use internet data to identify areas of the country most at-risk of child
abuse, educate men in certain states about coming out of the closet, and reducing paranoia
among young girls about their anxieties.
(3) Better understanding
• Digital truth serum leads us from problems to solutions.
• Promotes tolerance.
• With more understanding, we might find ways to reduce the World’s nasty attitudes.
• Provoking people curiosity and changing their perceptions promotes better understanding
than insisting on the value of tolerance.
• E.g., hateful internet searches dropped after the second Obama speech, but were increased
after the first speech two months earlier.
• “Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbours, our co-workers, our sports heroes
and yes, they are our men and women in uniform, who are willing to die in defence of our
country”. (Hateful searches increased)
• “Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran; the first mosque on
U.S. soil was in North Dakota; a Muslim American designed skyscrapers in Chicago”. (Hateful
searches decreased)
How we fill our minutes and hours
• Survey data usually provides information that is annual or monthly.
, How can digital truth serum improve our lives?
(1) The truth helps
o There is comfort in knowing that you are not alone in your insecurities and
embarrassing behaviour.
o It’s nice to know others are insecure about their bodies too.
o Google data can tell us how right our teachers were when encouraging us to put our
hands up in class to ask questions: plenty of basic, sub-profound questions lurk in
other peoples minds too.
o Modern self-help quote: “Never compare your Google searches to everyone else’s
social media posts”.
(2) Reaching out!
• Digital truth serum alerts us to people who are suffering.
• Enables experts to use internet data to identify areas of the country most at-risk of child
abuse, educate men in certain states about coming out of the closet, and reducing paranoia
among young girls about their anxieties.
(3) Better understanding
• Digital truth serum leads us from problems to solutions.
• Promotes tolerance.
• With more understanding, we might find ways to reduce the World’s nasty attitudes.
• Provoking people curiosity and changing their perceptions promotes better understanding
than insisting on the value of tolerance.
• E.g., hateful internet searches dropped after the second Obama speech, but were increased
after the first speech two months earlier.
• “Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbours, our co-workers, our sports heroes
and yes, they are our men and women in uniform, who are willing to die in defence of our
country”. (Hateful searches increased)
• “Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran; the first mosque on
U.S. soil was in North Dakota; a Muslim American designed skyscrapers in Chicago”. (Hateful
searches decreased)
How we fill our minutes and hours
• Survey data usually provides information that is annual or monthly.
