Living in Data by Jer Thorp
Analogous to the previous book I reviewed, What Money Can’t Buy, where the author explained how we, without realizing, drifted from a society having a market economy into a market dominated society; nowadays, we have shifted from a society living with data to a society “living in data”.
To live in data in the 21st century is to be incessantly extracted from, indexed, classified, and categorized, sold, discriminated against, and monitored. The new data reality is made by us, but it isn’t for us. Data come from us, but rarely return to us. In the book Living in Data, Data artist Jer Thorp takes an enlightening excursion through human’s ever-changing relationship with data, and asks the crucial questions of our time: How do we stop passively inhabiting data, and instead become active citizens of it? How can we build new data systems that start as two-way streets where data can actually service the belonging?
Data has always been a restless word. The vocabulary first appeared in the English language on loan from Latin, where it meant “a thing given, a gift delivered or sent.” It spent its early years in the shared custody of theology and mathematics. In 1614, clergyman Thomas Tuke wrote about the difference between mystery and Sacrament: “Every Sacrament is a Mysterie, but every Mysterie is not a Sacrament. Sacraments are not Nata, but Data, Not Natural but by Divine appointment.” Here “data” holds its Latin meaning as something given, but since its giver is the almighty God, it carries with it a particular strength of truth. At the turn of the twentieth century with Galton and Pearson and the birth of modern statistics came a new way for data to live in: as the contents of a table. Fifty years later, data became bound to one of its stalwart allies: computer. Between 1970 and the end of the millennium, data changed quickly: from a thing of God and mathematics to a collection of bits and bytes. Though the word was a different kind of veracity, it still adhered firmly to concept of truth being given.
Yet, data as “truth being given” is hardly the case, the author argued. Data about anything is an artifact of one fleeting moment of measurement and is, a record of the human measuring subject to bias.
Data nowadays is more closely resembled by the Greek word “capta”—“to take” rather than “to give”. Capta is a systematic expression of information understood as constructed, as phenomena perceived according to principles of interpretation. If data scientists can agree that knowledge is something that is interpreted and constructed, rather than given, we can accept the truth of our own role in its creation and take responsibility for it. Whether it is a row of data collected, an algorithm created, an analysis conducted, or a predictive model built with biases that significantly lowers the probability of a person from a minority group being hired or ruins the prospect of a migrant with certain skin color being accepted into a refugee camp.
The author did not spend time bickering over the linguistic aspect of data for nothing. Re-examining the definition and nature of data reminds us of two things: First, that data is not found; it is constructed. Data is not the truth, instead, is what perceived to be the truth. Second, data is often collected secretly, not given with alacrity.
Living in data, we must unfold and examine the act of data. We need to understand how data is created, how it is computed upon, and how it is used in decision-making. Put into its most harmless verbiage, data is collected. Yet, “collect” is an asymmetric word. The experience of the collector is very different from that of the collected from; the benefits and risks are piled unevenly on one side. Much of the unease in our data lives comes from this lopsidedness, from being on the low end of collection’s fulcrum. We need to always remember, how data is collected and stored deeply affects the ways in which it might later be used to make choices, to tell stories, or to act on individuals and groups. Most important, each decision made at the moment of collection is amplified as data are computed upon, inflated by algorithms, and distilled by visualization.
Threading a data story through hippo attacks, glaciers, 911 memorial stones, and school gymnasiums, around colossal rice piles, and overactive minefields, Jer Thorp shed light on various topics, the ones I particularly enjoy are the following:
1. Changing nature of data and our relationship with data.
2. Surveillance capitalism: Data collection being a one-way street.
3. Data Dark Matter: Do not collect when in doubt.
4. Biased algorithm, misrepresented statistics, and the never objective nature of data collection
5. Public data being not so public
Punctuated with Thorp's original and informative illustrations, Living in Data not only redefines what data is, but reimagines who gets to speak its language and how to use its power to create a more just and democratic future. Timely and inspiring, this book provides a much-needed path forward.
As a data enthusiast, I felt a bit unsettled after reading this book. I started reading this book with the expectation that it is just going to be an autobiography about all the interesting data projects Thorp has done as a data artist working at the New York Times and National Geographic. I’m glad that the author spent the effort to put together a massive non-linear, web of stories to address the social and ethical concerns about data sovereignty and surveillance. Reading this book reminded me that even with the best intentions of objectivity, every record is made in its own climate of politics. Data is never perfect and should be collected and handle with caution. We should always question, why are we collecting this data? What will this data be used for? Can this data collection initiative benefit whom we collect from? Data in the service of the belonging is a bright future that we can hopefully get to.
