[Air-L] Relevant fiction on all things data protection / technological progress / big-data marketing

Wed Sep 3 05:32:32 PDT 2014

Some "golden age" stories that do a good job of illustrating how things often end up really working:

The Machine that Won the War (Asimov, Short Story) - How human's really often deal with complex decisions (even when there is analytics available).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_That_Won_the_War_%28short_story%29
(Text: http://www.olivenri.com/machine_won_files/The_Machine_that_Won_the_War01.pdf)

and

Computers Don't Argue (Gordon R. Dickson, Short Story) - The nature of failure in complex systems (i.e. the real causes and consequences of data quality problem)
http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133

These are a bit more mundane than some of the other recommendations.  But I I found them really good discussion starters for getting students to think concretely about data management issues (sans tech hype).

Brian Butler
UMD iSchool

On Sep 3, 2014, at 1:30 AM, Alex Leavitt wrote:

> Not a book, but definitely fiction: highly, highly, highly recommend the
> Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 52-episode Japanese animation TV
> series, which explores a team of government military hackers in a
> post-cyborg age. From 2006, it explored big issues like Anonymous and the
> NSA before those things blew up. Also, I think it has THE BEST exploration
> of contemporary -- and future -- internet issues of any recent media, like
> digital city infrastructure hacking and spontaneously-developing robot AI.
> 
> ---
> 
> Alexander Leavitt
> PhD Candidate
> USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
> http://alexleavitt.com
> Twitter: @alexleavitt
> On Sep 2, 2014 10:21 PM, "Robert Ackland" <robert.ackland at anu.edu.au> wrote:
> 
>> My favourite example of data mining in marketing is in "Permutation City"
>> by Greg Egan, Orion/Millennium: London, 1994.
>> 
>> The protagonist receives spam video calls from avatars representing family
>> members and friends, who try to sell her products.  One day her spam
>> detector lets a spam call through (the avatar is of her mother, I think)
>> and it is so accurate that she gets tricked and keeps watching until it
>> starts making the sales pitch.  She curses herself, because she realises
>> that the marketing company will use her response to improve its algorithms,
>> thus making it harder for her own spam detection system to block future
>> spam calls.
>> 
>> Rob Ackland
>> 
>> 
>> On 03/09/14 05:46, max gindt wrote:
>> 
>>> Good evening,
>>> since some of you asked for my reading list, here it is.
>>> 
>>> - Jaron Lanier, Who owns the future?
>>> - Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding edge
>>> - Evgeny Morozov, To save everything, click here
>>> - Dave Eggers, The Circle
>>> - Luke Dormehl, The Formula
>>> - Big Data - Das neue Versprechen der Allwissenheit (collected essays)
>>> - Mercedes Bunz, Die stille Revolution
>>> - Daniel Miller, Das wilde Netzwerk: Ein ethnologischer Blick auf Facebook
>>> - Alain Desrosières, Prouver et gouverner
>>> - Shintaro Miyazaki, Algorythimisiert - Eine Medienarchäologie digitaler
>>> Signale und unerhörter Zeiteffekte
>>> 
>>> As you can see, there are some books which are very accessible and written
>>> in a journalistic manner, especially Dormehl.  Eggers' book which is only
>>> now getting popular in western europe is, I think, the near perfect
>>> depiction of the very-near future, although with little literary merit.
>>> Pynchons' has almost no place on the list but is still inspired by
>>> 2000-style internet... Desrosières writes about the use of statistics in
>>> government so not directly internet-related but still an interesting
>>> subject for those interested in probabilistic governing, which as a
>>> subject
>>> of course extends to data-based profiling and grouping. Finally, Miyazaki,
>>> with a historical approach details various technological developments and
>>> social uses all tending toward the all-day use of algorithms in our
>>> machines.
>>> 
>>> So, again, what are your suggestions (and thanks for those already given)?
>>> 
>>> Max
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Stine Gotved<gotved at itu.dk>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yes, I agree on Morgan - also his "Black Man" is fantastic.
>>>> Please, share the reading list!
>>>> :)
>>>> Stine
>>>> 
>>>> On 01/09/14 22.43, "Alejandro Tortolini"<alemtor at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I think "Altered carbon", by Richard K. Morgan.
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Alejandro Tortolini
>>>>> Buenos Aires, Argentina
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 2014-09-01 17:37 GMT-03:00 max gindt<gindtmax at gmail.com>:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dear Air-L-isti,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> some time ago I reviewed a few fiction- and non-fiction-books
>>>>>> portraying
>>>>>> technological change, data protection questions, big data-based
>>>>>> marketing
>>>>>> etc. Morozov, the latest Pynchon, Jaron Lanier, Mercedes Bunz, Dave
>>>>>> Eggers'
>>>>>> The Circle among other books, the aim being popular books illustrating
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> many near-future tech-related questions of our time.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> My question to the distinguished readers of this list being this: With
>>>>>> which book would you personally continue the series? No matter what
>>>>>> format
>>>>>> or perspective (or degree of complexity).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thank you very much for any pointers and advice,
>>>>>> Max Gindt
>>>>>> Brussels
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Alejandro Tortolini
>>>>> http://dooid.me/aletor
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> 
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>> 
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