When Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Collide—How Data Aggregation and Predictive Machines Threaten our Privacy and Autonomy

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence and Big Data represent two profound technology trends. Professor Alben’s article explores how Big Data feeds AI applications and makes the case that necessity to monitor such applications has become more immediate and consequential to protect our civil discourse and personal autonomy, especially as they are expressed on social media.

Like many of the revolutionary technologies that preceded it, ranging from broadcast radio to atomic power, AI can be used for purposes that benefit human beings and purposes that threaten our very existence. The challenge for the next decade is to make sure that we harness AI with appropriate safeguards and limitations.

With a perspective on previous “revolutionary” technologies, the article explains how personal data became profiled and marketed by data brokers over the past two decades with an emphasis on dangers to privacy rights.

The article observes that it is critical to adopt an approach in the public policy realm that addresses the bias dangers of a technology, while enabling a fair and transparente implementation that allows our society to reap the benefits of adoption. It advocates solutions to improve the technology and adopt the best versions, not cut off development in early stages of the new technology’s evolution.

Drawing on the author’s work as a state-level Chief Privacy Officer and a high-tech executive, the article concludes with four policy recommendations for curbing the flow of personal information into the Big Data economy: 1. Regulating data brokers; 2. Minimizing data by default; 3. Public Records Reform and 4. Improving personal data hygiene.