The more we rely on artificial intelligence for our knowledge base, the more we should be focused on what the training data includes and excludes. The answer may shape our future understanding of our shared history and the world around us.

Knowledge always needs someone to recognize. It is an active act, not something given by the world some territo

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cheerleaders for big data have made three exciting claims, each one reflected in the success of Google Flu Trends. First, that data analysis produces uncannily accurate results. Second, that every single data point can be captured—the “N = All” claim we met in the previous chapter—making old statistical sampling techniques obsolete (what that means

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The numbers have no way of speaking for themselves. We speak for them. We imbue them with meaning. Like Caesar, we may construe them in self-serving ways that are detached from their objective reality. Data-driven predictions can succeed—and they can fail. It is when we deny our role in the process that the odds of failure rise. Before we demand mo

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