A passive apocalypse towards a dystopian world with big data.
Extremely large sets of data are referred to as big data. According to Gartner, circa 2001, “Big data is data that contains greater variety arriving in increasing volumes and with ever-higher velocity.” The smaller sets of digital footprints contributing to a massive volume of data, capable to generate unimaginable sets of information. The 3 Vs of big data are volume, velocity, and variety. These words sound really simple but are enough to process the exact interpretation of the big data concepts. Volume refers to a substantial amount of combination of structured and unstructured data. Velocity as the numerous amounts of data entering at a rapid pace. Variety refers to the countless types of data that are stored. The other two Vs also have emerged in the assets of bigdata theory lately, and they are value and veracity. The value of data is inherent but is of no use unless discovered. The value also depends on the veracity of the data type.
The future seems divergent if we start visualizing further growth of big data. Big data and artificial intelligence do not necessarily have to be malicious to threaten humanity in the future, but the probability somehow tilts towards the misuse of massive power the big data beholds. The world of artificial intelligence might be so advanced that the stored big data might be enough to rule humanity. “AI doesn’t have to be evil to destroy humanity — if AI has a goal and humanity just happens in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it, no hard feelings.”, Elon Musk. The world going automated represents a paradigm shift towards digitalization. Max Erik Tegmark, a physicist, and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology states that AI enriched by big data would be enough capable to hack any automated system to crash the economy of your enemy. Powerful attacking AI can be tremendously ruinous with context to cyberwarfare.
The immense hurdle for the big data industry is data security and privacy concerns. The high-tech communication sectors contents affluent data and protection of customer data is a huge concern for consumers. We have contributed so much towards big data that the leakage of it can make our private information vulnerable. Data breaches, data brokerage, and data discrimination are the top 3 big data privacy risks.
The risks involved demands proper practices for data storage. Data governance and integration play a major role in compliance and privacy management. Real-time monitoring of data avoids the collection of unnecessary data and prevention of internal threats can be used as better practices in data management. The decentralization of data servers and storage can also be a solution to the integration of big data. It is equally important for any individual to be enough aware and give away less as possible information to the cloud. The data sets I provide to the internet, I believe is enough to create a clone of me. We certainly do not want that to happen, do we?
References:
Oracle Australia. (2020, March 6). What is big data? Oracle. https://www.oracle.com/au/big-data/what-is-big-data.html
CB Insights. (2020, June 26). How AI Will Go Out Of Control According To 52 Experts. CB Insights Research. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/ai-threatens-humanity-expert-quotes/
Ahmed, I. (2018, April 28). The Future of Big Data: 10 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of. SmartData Collective. https://www.smartdatacollective.com/future-big-data-predictions/
Big Data and Privacy: What Companies Need to Know — Talend. (2020, August 23). Talend Real-Time Open Source Data Integration Software. https://www.talend.com/resources/big-data-privacy/