Overview

A sweeping history of data and its technical, political, and ethical impact on our world. From facial recognition--capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents--to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn't just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the census enshrined in the US Constitution to the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search. Expanding on the popular course they created at Columbia University, Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones illuminate the ways in which data has long been used as a tool and a weapon in arguing for what is true, as well as a means of rearranging or defending power. By understanding the trajectory of data--where it has been and where it might yet go--Wiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose, with intentionality and purpose.

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Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the New York Times's chief data scientist. He resides in New York City. Eric Jason Martin is an Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has narrated many dozens of audiobooks in fiction and nonfiction. He is also the host and producer of the award-winning This American Wife, a popular podcast, and now web series, that features original comedy and stories, as well as interviews with authors such as Robert Greene and Amy Tan.

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