Cross-border discussion: What does big data mean to humans?

Big data, new technology will bring another revolution to mankind--the difference is that the speed will be more violent and rapid than the previous few times.

A few days ago, in the 2014 summer of Tencent, the experts and scholars from the fields of science, technology, economy, society, history and culture, have expressed their views on the meaning of "big data" to human society and reached the above consensus.

Question: Will new technologies make us happier and safer?

There is nothing new under the sun. In the autumn of the school dean of Hong DAO, "Fundamentally, we are in the midst of an era of technological revolution, but in fact human history is always centered around the acquisition, distribution and redistribution of resources." ”

Indeed, before the advent of large data, with each scientific evolution and revolution, the ability of human resources to mobilize more and more strong, but does this necessarily mean that human well-being and security?

Miao, dean of the Academy of Astronomy and Space science at Sun Yat-sen University. Every revolution, he said, promoted the development of human civilization, "to a certain extent, to bring happiness to mankind." ”

People are not necessarily safe because of efficiency, which is the view of historical scholar Wu. Since the industrial age, he said, as the capacity to mobilize resources has intensified, humans are becoming insecure. According to the Yearbook school, before the Industrial Revolution, people's ability to mobilize energy was limited, such as a person's 2000 kcal a day, and now at least 100 times times more. At the same time, the world's population has increased from hundreds of millions of to 7 billion.

Humanity's unbridled mobilization of chemical energy for years, destroying water, polluting the air, and even destroying other species, is largely beyond the bounds of nature, and this astonishing mobilization may hasten the death of the human species.

"Perhaps the human individual will feel more secure, because one can resist a lot of diseases, but also can resist the beast, but how long can humans live?" Is it possible for humans to live 1000 years? This is what we are facing in this era. "Wu said.

Reality: Opportunities and risks in the big data age

From E-commerce to medical education, big data is profoundly affecting the http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/32533.html "> Our lives." "This social change should be more thorough and drastic than the changes in the agricultural or industrial society, and the most lethal is much faster," said it critic Xie.

But Liu De, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University, warns that big data is a big opportunity, but if you don't pay attention to human nature, "Big data is a lot like a big bluff, and it's a big risk." ”

Big data, he says, bring huge amounts of data, and they also bring a lot of false rules. "The data is too large to actually bring about the distortion and loss of the law, and we can't get all the data, we have the ' data island ' phenomenon." ”

Privacy issues are another big risk that big data can bring. Liu De said, "in the car networking, the development of the Internet of things, maybe later we buy any one thing, our lampblack machine, refrigerator, washing machine, TV inside all have positioning, you can know your distribution." ”

Yu, director of the Social Studies Center at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, said the big data age is not secret.

Media people say that big data could make the economy more accurate, reduce economic volatility, balance supply and demand, and make power easier to monitor, "all the way to make people safer." ”

Xie that the use of large data is not equal, the process is not the same speed, is due to different countries, because of social patterns and different. There are only two ways, either you change your society, catch the speed of others, or you may become a "data colony".

The future: "Pet Man" or a beautiful new world?

According to the trend of technology development, after the invention of quantum computer, only 10% of the world's people may need to work, and 90% of the people have nothing to do. Miao described his conjecture about the future.

Also about the future, Hua da Gene chairman Wang Jian described another picture: with the development of gene technology, human can reorganize genes, effectively reduce the deaf, thalassemia and other genetic defects, to a certain extent, control their own life and death.

Such a "beautiful New World" as if the myth, like the new technology to eliminate the flowers, genetic technology can eliminate some genetic diseases, in Wu view, the positive benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

But Zhao Yang, a researcher at the Philosophy Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, holds a different view. Because, this kind of biotechnology, may bring some very good possibility, is a myth to the individual, but may become the question to the whole.

"Assuming that there is a biotechnology that has recently made everyone equally beautiful, everyone is as tall, everyone is as handsome and everyone is immortal, then is everyone agreeing to be like this?" He asked.

The documentary director Li Licheng mentioned his very favorite documentary, "The world after the disappearance of mankind," a commentary: "Before the advent of mankind, there is life on Earth, after the disappearance of mankind, there will be life on Earth." ”

"It's a reminder that you can't do whatever you want," Li Chengcai said. ”