Kate Crawford Quotes
Biases and blind spots exist in big data as much as they do in individual perceptions and experiences. Yet there is a problematic belief that bigger data is always better data and that correlation is as good as causation.
Crawford, Kate. "The Hidden Biases in Big Data." Harvard Business Review, 1 Apr. 2013.
Berelson had done a major compendium of research and found that the high quality studies with very good data were usually done in studies or programs that were not very important, while the most important areas were usually informed by poorer data and less rigid studies. As an example he gave the extensive data that the defense department then had on the relative physical fitness prowess of the marines verses the other services, but had little or no data as to whether the marine was a better fighter, had better judgment in crises, was more skilled with weapons system of the time etc. The Education Department had great data on the performance of students on mathematics tests but almost none on how to teach mathematics.
Kate Crawford is a writer, composer, producer and academic. Crawford is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research (Social Media Collective), the co-founder and director of research at the AI Now Institute at NYU, a visiting professor at the MIT Center for Civic Media, a senior fellow at the Information Law Institute at NYU, and an associate professor in the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She is also a member of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on Data-Driven Development. Her research focuses on social change and media technologies, particularly on the intersection of humans, mobile devices, and social networks. She has published on cultures of technology use and the way media histories inform the present.
