Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education

KEEPING UP:
BIG DATA NEWS

Dr. David Stillwell

Lecturer in Big Data Analytics and Quantitative Social Science
Cambridge University Judge Business School
 Poll 1: How do you keep up with what’s going on
in the world of data? (Please select all that apply)
- Tech news sites (e.g. Wired, TechCrunch)
- General news (e.g. BBC, CNN)
- Online discussion websites/forums (e.g. Reddit)
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Podcasts
- Email newsletter (e.g. HBR)
- My workplace has an INFORMAL group of data specialists
- My workplace has FORMAL events for data specialists
- I go to conferences or meetups with a data theme
 Keeping up

Twitter: (public opinion/debate around tech) My reference list:

@markscott82 (tech at Politico) www.mix.com/davidstillwell (updated when I
see interesting things)
@shonaghosh (tech at Business Insider)
@donie (cyber security at CNN)
Podcasts?
@JoshConstine (editor at TechCrunch)
@issielapowsky (Previously Wired, now Protocol)
People/groups to follow on LinkedIn?
@RMac18 (Buzzfeed tech correspondent)

Conferences?
Newsletters: (data specialists)
https://www.dataiq.co.uk/
Anywhere else?
https://cognitionx.com/
https://hbr.org/topic/analytics

TV: (easy viewing)

BBC Click weekly show
 All references (and more) at:
https://mix.com/davidstillwell
Breakout Groups (~5 people, for 5 minutes)

Please:
1. Introduce yourself: Where you
work, what you work on
2. How do you keep up with the
latest data analytics news? Any
tips?
Social Distancing at Ft. Lauderdale Spring Break

https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/04/tech/location-tracking-florida-coronavirus/index.html
Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports

Download your community’s report: https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/

https://www.ft.com/content/ba60772b-0bd3-3fdd-9b77-20dd8fcdcbef
TomTom Traffic Data

https://www.ft.com/content/0c13755a-6867-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
Contact Tracing

https://institute.global/policy/contact-tracing-and-fight-against-covid-19-how-digital-tools-can-help
 Contact Tracing

• Singapore has also developed the TraceTogether app, which

uses Bluetooth to track and notify people who have come into
contact with those infected by the virus. It’s non-mandatory and
[…] only around one in six have downloaded it since it was
launched two weeks ago, which is not above the 75 per cent
coverage threshold needed for effectiveness.
• The South Korean government has explicitly acknowledged
the intrusive nature of the tools being used, but legal
changes made in the aftermath of MERS have allowed their
use. These changes include amendments to the country’s
Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act, which gave the
Minister of Health the “legal authority to collect private data,
without a warrant, from both already confirmed and potential
patients.”

https://institute.global/policy/contact-tracing-and-fight-against-covid-19-how-digital-tools-can-help
 Surveillance Techniques and their Civil Liberties
Risks

See also view from data-rights campaigner Paul-Olivier Dehaye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cyS4PhHGVc

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/03/26/countries-are-using-apps-and-data-networks-to-
keep-tabs-on-the-pandemic
 Poll 2: Should your government use a mandatory
phone app to track residents’ locations in order to
notify those who have had contact with someone
diagnosed with COVID-19?

- Definitely
- Probably
- Maybe
- No way
Variety: Pay by face

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263923/chinese-subway-facial-recognition-fares-pay-ai
Clearview.ai

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/02/12/facial-recognition-clearview-ai-shorter-orig.cnn-business/video/playlists/business-artificial-intelligence/
Machine Learning in Medicine

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/j https://www.economist.com/science-and-
an/01/ai-system-outperforms-experts-in- technology/2019/12/18/a-system-based-on-ai-will-scan-
spotting-breast-cancer the-retina-for-signs-of-alzheimers
Machine Learning in Medicine

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health- https://www.wsj.com/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-
26259101 tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700
Machine Learning in Medicine

https://www.wired.com/story/artif https://www.scientificamerican.com/art
icial-intelligence-makes-bad- icle/artificial-intelligence-is-rushing-
medicine-even-worse/ into-patient-care-and-could-raise-risks/
Machine Learning in Medicine

https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-
watch-helps-save-motorcyclists-life/
Facebook to ban ‘deepfakes’
 Generative Adversarial
Networks (GANs)
See:

https://www.thispersondoes
notexist.com/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/arti
cle/7xn4wy/this-website-uses-ai-
to-generate-the-faces-of-people-
who-dont-exist
 Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

A bit like a counterfeiter vs. a cop

One network (the generative one) tries to create an

example
The other network (the discriminative one) tries to
classify the fakes vs. the real ones
They keep training each other

https://skymind.ai/wiki/generative-adversarial-network-gan
And DeepFakes

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywyxex/deepfake-of-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-fake-video-policy
Breakout Groups (~5 people, for 5 minutes)

Imagine you work in HR for a large

bank.
500 of the bank’s middle managers
go on a 2-day leadership course.
What data could HR use to measure
whether leadership has improved
without using a survey?
 What can we measure inside an organisation from
emails?
All at the team level, not the individual level.

How do effective teams interact?

How do happy teams interact?
Can we predict happiness & effectiveness of teams
from their email interactions? Enhancement for
annual survey.
Eventually: can we notice situations with issues and
intervene? (e.g. team under stress)
 Collaborate with Academics

e.g. in the UK there’s

Alan Turing Institute. It’s open to working with
companies. (https://www.turing.ac.uk/) – streams its
talks online live and also has recorded videos of
past talks.
Cambridge Centre for Data-Driven Discovery C2D3
(https://www.bigdata.cam.ac.uk/)
Volume & Variety: Getting data from Twitter’s API

Twitter API example

How data analysis helps football clubs make better
signings

https://www.ft.com/content/84aa8b5e-c1a9-11e8-84cd-9e601db069b8
Impact of data analytics on sport
Increasing Importance of Explainability

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-goldman-sachs- https://medium.com/arthur-ai/uk-gpdr-
apple/apple-co-founder-says-apple-card-algorithm- watchdog-says-explain-your-ai-373ef76d3c
gave-wife-lower-credit-limit-idUKKBN1XL038
Velocity & Veracity: Faster Indicators of UK Economic
Activity

UK government now publishes indices of economic activity from ‘new data sources’
E.g.
• Monthly VAT Returns
• Number of goods vehicles on the road
• International ship tracking to measure imports

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/15/ons-big-data-quickly-spot-economic-trends-uk
https://datasciencecampus.ons.gov.uk/faster-indicators-of-uk-economic-activity/
https://www.ft.com/content/86632fcc-a22d-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1
Volume: Right to Data Portability

www.applymagicsauce.com
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-
regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-data-portability/
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613630/training-a-single-ai-model-can-emit-as-much-carbon-as-five-cars-in-their-lifetimes/
 Neuralink: Elon Musk’s Brain Hacking Company

Brain implant sitting behind the ear. Slender wires with

electrodes goes into the brain, implanted by robot
and then connected to implant with wifi.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49004004
https://www.ft.com/content/eec3bfb2-aa09-11e9-b6ee-3cdf3174eb89
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/20/tech/elon-musk-neuralink-brain-chip-experts/index.html
 How a Neuron Works

The human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons (about the same as stars in the
Milky Way)
Each neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons.
That’s about 100 trillion synapses
Veracity

https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/37604/Would%20I%20be%20Helped%2
0-%20Cross-
National%20CCTV%20Footage%20Shows%20That%20Intervention%20Is%20the%20Norm%20in
%20Public%20Conflicts%20-%20Postprint.pdf
Variety: Mining the scientific literature

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1335-8.epdf
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neagpb/ai-trained-on-old-scientific-papers-makes-
discoveries-humans-missed