January 27, 2020
Don’t forget people in the use of big data for development Nature: Sept. 2018
Joshua Blumenstock states that a humbler data science could transform international development while also limiting the number of alleged silver bullets that have missed their mark in recent years. Describe the promise, pitfalls and ways forward Blumenstock uses as the foundation for his thesis.
Blumenstock promises that data science and further data collection on people promises to be an easy way forward for contact and easy monitoring of the needs in hard to reach places. Blumenstock used the poor and relatively inaccessible parts of India as an example of how this technology can be useful. He cited the fact that we can see the varying wealth levels in a community, as well as look at crop yields and other important humanitarian statistics - just through the use of mobile phone data from a particular region. One pitfall that he briefly touched on was how easily someone could abuse this data. For instance, instead of humanitarian aid, governments could use this data to coordinate military strikes based on population. This is the largest obstacle that Blumenstock needs to overcome in his plan, as this raw data is easily exploited with the right tools. However, when he confronts this obstacle in his paper, he never truly describes a way forward from it, rather he seems to hope to rely on an inherent moral good. This comes off as short sighted, because, although this new technology can be very useful from a humanitarian and disaster relief perspective, governments who wish to track population and social movements can exploit this as well. Trusting the idea that only good will be done with new technology is a naive idea, as all it takes is a single person discovering how they can use said technology to benefit themselves to tip the balance and ruin what was a good idea initially. In the end, the potential for misuse outweighs any possible boon that might come with the use of this cellphone data tracking. Even though there is a potential for positive use, it is important that the positive and negative aspects are both considered when discussing the uses of new technology. Take the creation of ammonia fertilizer for instance. It revolutionized the way that we farm, and allowed us to produce more food than we thought possible, however it didn’t come without a price. The very same technology is still used today by countries to produce chemical weapons. The cost benefit of every technology is important, and sometimes cannot be weighed before it is too late.