Big Data and Society

Undergraduate / Graduate

The massive explosion of information produced by computers and sophisticated computational methods capable of harnessing this data to generate inferences has led to an increasingly data-driven society. Businesses, governments, and individuals seek to leverage this data to develop and market products, formulate policy, and improve the human condition. Computational approaches to decision making have become increasingly prevalent in domains such as criminal justice, education, employment, finance, and politics. While decision making based on data mining and algorithms has the capacity to improve society, critics argue that these approaches strengthen socioeconomic class divisions, constitute an invasion of privacy, or violate the civil rights of minority groups. This course will survey some of the major uses of big data in society and assess the potential ethical, moral, and legal implications of these models.