Prophet in the era of big data: Where will the Internet take mankind?

Prophet in the era of big data: Where will the Internet take mankind?

In the past 2 1 year, the development of Internet in China has exceeded everyone's imagination. In the Internet era dominated by information and data, whether in China or other parts of the world, after several years, have we really mastered the essence of the Internet? How will mankind continue to develop the Internet, or where will the Internet take mankind?

The second world internet conference was unveiled in Wuzhen yesterday. This newspaper interviewed Victor Mayer-schoenberg, the co-author of "The Age of Big Data" who is known as the "Prophet of the Age of Big Data" and a professor at the Internet Research Institute of the School of Network, Oxford University. In his eyes, who has been studying Internet governance and supervision for a long time, the Internet era is just a drop in the ocean compared with the long history of mankind. We still know very little about how the Internet will profoundly change human economy and society.

No technology will kidnap us.

"The Internet has changed the world by adding communication functions to computers, but for many years, many people still think that the Internet only makes communication faster." Meyer Schoenberg said that in his research, he often found that in all industries, some people still only use the Internet as a tool to communicate with customers quickly, and there are still many people who think so.

However, these people are undoubtedly wrong. "If you continue to think like this, then in a few years, these people will be eliminated by the market." The reason given by Meyer Schoenberg is simple: Today, the influence of the Internet has completely covered our lives.

Now that the ability is strong everywhere, the question is coming-has the Internet completely kidnapped our lives? The ubiquitous "low-headed family" seems to be the best example.

However, Meyer-Schoenberg said that this is another misunderstanding of the Internet, and he does not think that human beings will rely too much on the Internet.

"No technology will kidnap us. As long as we are willing, we will always be the masters of the future. " In view of this, Meyer Schoenberg hopes that human beings will pay more attention to facts and data in the future and make better decisions for economic and social development.

In fact, Meyer Schoenberg also agreed that the Internet was just a brand-new technology for a long time after its birth, and there was no "soul" or so-called "Internet spirit". However, when the concepts of "intelligence" and "data" gradually appeared, the use of the Internet also broke away from the purely technical significance and rose to a new realm.

What exactly is big data?

Speaking of "big data", Meyer Schoenberg bluntly said that people have many misunderstandings about big data, and the biggest misunderstanding is that "big data is just a new technology". If we use traditional concepts to understand big data, we will not only miss the profound insights and great advantages of big data itself, but even misunderstand the analysis results of big data.

So what exactly is big data?

In "The Age of Big Data" written by Meyer Schoenberg and Kenneth Cookeye (data editor of The Economist), they pointed out that big data is not an exact concept. At first, big data appeared because the amount of information to be processed was too large, which exceeded the amount of memory that ordinary computers could use when processing data. Therefore, engineers had to improve data processing tools, and new processing technologies were born.

Because Internet companies have the ability to collect a large amount of valuable data and are driven by strong interests, it is logical for Internet companies to become the first users of the latest data processing technology. For this reason, many people worry that Internet companies that have mastered a large amount of data will use the existing data to analyze other personal information and achieve some business purposes that we can't imagine.

Meyer Schoenberg said that as far as he knows, there are indeed companies that abuse data analysis. This is why he emphasized that it is particularly important to regulate the use of personal information through legislation. He said that some data can only be used under strict supervision, and it is far better to supervise data through legal channels than to directly restrict or stop data flow.

"Imagine if I can find the cause and treatment for my sick child by analyzing my health data, which may be loved by everyone. However, if I use my health data to deliberately increase my medical insurance costs, this is what I want to refuse. "

He believes that there is nothing wrong with big data itself, but the wrong way is to use it. As the Internet becomes more and more powerful, we must work harder to avoid temptation and find its fly in the ointment more keenly.

The misunderstanding of the Internet by human beings is partly due to their own ignorance.

Any monopoly is always temporary.

Although Meyer Schoenberg believes that the Internet will not kidnap people's lives, it does "kill" people more time. According to the survey data, BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) accounts for more than 90% of the total coverage of netizens in China, and the duration of all the apps of these three companies accounts for 50% of the total duration of netizens.

In this regard, Meyer Schoenberg said: "This situation is the same everywhere." In the United States, people spend countless hours on Facebook and Google every day, including watching videos for a long time on YouTube (acquired by Google in 2006).

"The only thing we need to care about is whether the next Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent will be born." Any innovation-driven industry will have a monopoly. But it is precisely because innovation is endless that any monopoly is always temporary.

In the United States, many famous Internet companies were once regarded as monopolies, but now many of them have lost their influence.

Take Google Street View service as an example. Google's image acquisition vehicle has collected images of roads and houses and a lot of controversial data in many countries. In some countries, owners don't want their houses or gardens to appear in Google Street View images, so Google has to blur the images of these owners' houses or gardens under great pressure. But the problem is that for thieves who intend to commit crimes, such mosaics are no different from silver here.

However, if other companies have a technology that is practical in Street View and meets everyone's security concerns, then Google's position will inevitably be challenged-just, for the time being, everyone does not know whether such technology exists. The relationship between monopoly and innovation is the latter's restriction on the former.

"As long as the monopoly is temporary and there are always opportunities for innovation, people don't have to worry about the monopoly of the Internet."

The "entry fee" for Internet entrepreneurship is much lower than before.

When writing "The Age of Big Data" on 20 12, Mayer-schoenberg and Cookeye suggested that the focus of information technology reform now should be the information itself, instead of just focusing on technology as in the past. Although most technical experts believe that the development of data is synchronized with the change of computer technology, today, good content delivery has become the real driving force for change.

Meyer-Schoenberg said that now is a good time for internet entrepreneurship and data entrepreneurship, especially in China. He believes that in China's Internet structure where BAT has three pillars, what young Internet entrepreneurs need most is to persist in innovation and have their own good ideas.

In fact, a hundred years ago, if people wanted to start a business, it would take a long time to raise funds to build a factory. Even ten years ago, Internet entrepreneurs still needed a long period of financing to build a server farm. "However, in today's era of big data, entrepreneurs may only need' a great idea'." Meyer Schoenberg said that the remaining entrepreneurial needs can be obtained at commodity prices, such as cloud computing services.

"That is to say, the' entry fee' of Internet entrepreneurship at the capital level is much lower than before, but the quality requirement for entrepreneurial content-'golden ideas' is constantly improving." Meyer Schoenberg said that this phenomenon is "simply wonderful."

For China's most popular "internet plus" at present, Meyer-Schoenberg thinks it is an excellent strategy to make data display its talents.

He believes that the thinking of internet plus tries to connect anything you want with the Internet, which not only gives data a chance to play a role in a broader space, but also allows you to get in touch with more diverse and extensive data sources for data collection. He said that he did not think that the Internet industry in China was developing too fast, nor did he think that the Internet development in China was unstable. "If there is anything to pay attention to, it is to continue to innovate."

China hosted the world internet conference for the second time this year. Meyer-Schoenberg said that hosting the Internet conference is an excellent opportunity for China to show the development achievements of the Internet and digital technology to all countries in the world. He expects the conference to pay more attention to the achievements of Internet entrepreneurs in China in recent years, and hopes that through this conference, local Internet enterprises in China can continue to maintain their innovation.

There is no absolute security in the internet world.

When it comes to Internet risks, no matter when 20 12 wrote the book or now, Meyer Schoenberg said that security has always been the primary consideration.

Google, Amazon, Alibaba, Huawei and so on. Cloud services have been launched one after another, but does the massive data stored in the clouds of these big companies mean higher security?

"If a company says that its cloud service is absolutely safe, it is simply crazy." Meyer Schoenberg said that cloud security is a very grand topic. In the near future, many Internet companies will definitely invest more money and energy in data security and service security. Because in the internet world, there can be no absolute security; Even throughout human history, there is nothing absolute, except that everyone will die.

However, he went on to point out that the Internet security technology of large enterprises is far superior to that of most small enterprises. Because hackers have been targeting large enterprises for many years, the security systems of most large enterprises have been updated. "What we really need to worry about is small companies, especially some small and medium-sized enterprises that have just started. Their network security needs more vigilance."

Why is Internet security becoming more and more important? There is a simple reason.

Meyer-Schoenberg said that when more and more transactions and human interactions move from offline to online and become more and more digital, crimes against the Internet world will also rise. In the internet world, the wealth that can be obtained by illegal means far exceeds that of offline, so criminal means are becoming more and more complicated. At the same time, with the complexity and upgrading of Internet technology, the information security systems and security networks of many small companies (including countries and regions) have failed to keep up with the current trend, and many enterprises and countries are in a "semi-streaking" state in the Internet world. Compared with well-known large enterprises, little-known small enterprises should be more worried about the internet risks they are eyeing.

Blind worship of the Internet is also a risk.

For China's Internet security, Meyer Schoenberg continued his view that China should only maintain the current investment trend in Internet security.

"I am not worried about an Internet power like China." He said that for those countries where the Internet industry is just emerging, security issues are more important to them. In his view, it is precisely because the Internet is still in its infancy in these countries, and their investment in Internet security is quite limited, so these countries can easily become the primary potential targets of Internet crimes.

Personal information security is also the most vulnerable part of Internet security. The more people's data are available on the Internet, the weaker personal control over their own information, and the greater the possibility that personal data will be stolen, abused or even used for crimes.

Regarding the abuse of big data, Meyer-Schoenberg said that if there is indeed the act of deceiving consumers and customers through big data analysis, then the main reason for this phenomenon is the information asymmetry between buyers and sellers.

Sounds like an offline transaction? However, it should be noted that a major mission of the birth of the Internet is to solve information asymmetry. Meyer-Schoenberg said that compared with offline transactions, information asymmetry on the Internet can be quickly solved through data transmission, which is unmatched by offline businesses. Therefore, as long as the data exists, when people trade online, they can know whether the price they bear is reasonable or not and whether the transaction is "worthwhile" through the data information.

However, we also have to admit that the Internet not only provides convenience for life, but also makes the legal means to protect privacy out of control.

Taking personal data security as an example, it is mentioned in "Big Data Era" that the core technology of privacy protection is no longer applicable in the face of big data. At the same time, people who benefit from big data itself and big data analysis results may put big data in inapplicable areas, or may exaggerate and artificially enhance their trust in big data analysis results. Of course, the worst result is to use big data to commit crimes.

In addition, Meyer-Schoenberg said that there is still a big risk that is forming, but it is too late to avoid it, that is, blind worship of the Internet. Because the internet is not so omnipotent.

Accuracy is no longer the focus of exploring the world.

2065438+02 Victor Mayer-Schoenberg and Kenneth Cookeye, another author of The Age of Big Data, realize that the most innovative enterprises in the world pay more and more attention to data, which is no longer a by-product of transactions, but a valuable resource that can increase new thinking and economic benefits. So they decided to write a book about big data.

Meyer Schoenberg said that no part of this book is particularly important to China or any other individual country, and no chapter is more important than other chapters. "Because this book only makes sense if all the concepts are integrated." He said that if "Big Data Times" is to be reprinted, the contents of the original book do not need to be deleted, only some actual cases are added, and a chapter may be added specifically on how big data has affected and changed various economic fields in the past three years.

When it comes to the application of big data in the Internet, Meyer Schoenberg believes that the biggest impact of big data on human beings through the Internet may be to change the way people explore the world, and the impact of this change will continue.

For example, when people see someone posting a new message on Facebook, there will be a "like" button below to like it, and they can also see how many people like the message. When the quantity is small, accurate figures such as "13" and "109" will be displayed; When the number of favorites is huge, only an approximate value will be displayed, such as "6000", "4 1k(4 1000, where k stands for thousands)" and so on. It's not that Facebook doesn't know the exact number of people it likes, but when there are quite a few people who share the same view, the exact number is no longer important. People have come to the conclusion that this trend can be judged accordingly.

The authors mentioned in "Big Data Times" that Google's translation service is better than other companies, not because Google has a better algorithm mechanism, but because it has added all kinds of seemingly useless or even wrong data. In 2006, the trillions of corpora published by Google were just some "useless" content from the Internet. Google regards this as a "training set", which enables Google Translation Service to correctly calculate more possibilities of English vocabulary collocation.

It can be said that Google's attempt has no special connection with data and algorithms. In fact, this attempt at that time just reflected the "Internet thinking" that is most frequently mentioned in China today. Just as online news can be constantly updated or even modified, an important feature of the Internet is fault tolerance. When accuracy is no longer the focus of our exploration of the world, we must learn to accept the existence of chaos and mistakes. "People are increasingly focusing on analyzing the correlation between different things, rather than looking for the reasons behind each prediction." Meyer Schoenberg said.

Regarding the development of Internet in China, especially the e-commerce industry comparable to the speed of the universe, Meyer Schoenberg said that this was basically what he expected, because China's vast market and consumer base gave an ideal environment for the development of e-commerce. Any new idea or product can be quickly conveyed to one billion potential consumers through the Internet, and these one billion people speak the same language and live in the same legal system.

What does this mean? "It means that it only takes one night, or even shorter time, and good ideas and good products can let hundreds of millions of people know." This is unimaginable and impossible in any other country.

Three years ago, Mayer-schoenberg and Cookeye said that when people are ready to develop e-commerce, live on the Internet, enter the computer age or pick up an abacus, the appearance of these behaviors is more important than the problems behind them.

In the past three years, the speed of change in the internet world has been increasing day by day, but one thing has never changed. "Through the Internet, big data will change everything, which may be beyond all our imagination."