The Intricacies Of Data Integration, And Organization, Into Useable Information...

...With ever proliferating collection nodes, mobile and autonomous or not.

That this will also be an ever increasing flood of data pretty much goes without saying. And the challenges of being able to do anything truly intelligent with it will be significant; especially with an ever increasing historical perspective. And that this change will also be difficult for the public to understand and accept ought to also be obvious.

What truly makes this far worse, however, is that, when the CEO of Intel says that "...Data is the new oil.." he means that in the truest sense of a profitable resource that should be exploited to the fullest degree possible. As in get at and control as much as you can, just like the old days of liquid gold, and find the best ways to process it for the best profits possible.

Oh, the passions that must be enthralling some of these people now at the money there will be to be made. And just like the days of old, such passions won't necessarily be focused on the wider ranging impacts of such wide spread collection, extraction, and usage (where few of the real costs were paid in the purchase price). Especially when such usage is distributed in direct proportion to your income; not something that's very good for the rest of us. And that's a problem when you want to preserve public oversight of such things. Or at least a problem for the rest of us because we ought to have a great input on how this information is used, but will our need outweigh the needs of the seekers of profit? If history is any guide then we don't have a lot of reason to be optimistic.

One also wonders whether the deluge of information would be nearly as bad if the commodity orientation of information, and thus the profit motivation concerning its creation, were eliminated. Hard to say really. It's certainly possible, but by no means a given, information being as important as it is.

In any case, though, just some more things to keep in mind as you consider these "breathtaking" eras of the new information world we have rolling down upon us now.

The Drones of Tomorrow Have a Data Problem