Data-ism

A graphic to illustrate networking

From Greek -ismos > Latin -isma > French -isme > English -ism, this suffix indicates a system or ideology. A system is a set of rules, and ideology is a systematic set of ideas—as first used in socialist and communist writings with reference to class—is related to political and economic conditions.

Dataism (the term coined by David Brooks in 2013), is, therefore, a system that believes in data to be the central idea that impacts politico-economic conditions. The idea of knowledge, in this system, is created by patterns generated from data. It celebrates the emergence of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence by identifying them as more complex data processing systems than human intelligence because of their capability of detecting a pattern by mining ‘big data’—the more data/information the more value in understanding the world around us. Dataism believes in a system that is beneficial to societies that generate more data. Due to the connection it makes between societal value and data generation, it inevitably affects the sharing culture of a society by blurring the difference between private and public. (182) [SN–12]

[Brooks, 2013]

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