Living in Data: A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Information Future

Data artist Thorp takes an enlightening excursion through humans’ ever-changing relationship with data in his spot-on debut. To “tell the real story of data,” Thorp writes, one must look beyond Facebook and machine learning, and toward “places where the story bubbled up a century ago, and the places where we can find new stories just beginning to flow.” To that end, he recounts his adventures through the Angolan wilderness collecting data about plant and animal life, atop a melting glacier as part of an effort to track the ice’s movement, and 1,100 meters below the surface of the ocean in search of methane “cold seeps.” Central is the tension between two futures: one in which “living in data” means being acted on largely without one’s knowledge, and a people-first alternative in which individuals and communities maintain sovereignty over their data. With a gift for explaining technical matters—he describes algorithms via a comparison to gym class team selection—Thorp makes accessible the technical, moral, and political implications of data collection and distribution. Those with qualms about living in an ever more data-driven world owe it to themselves to pick this up. (May)