Non-fictionThe sheer speed and volume at which data is processed, coupled with popular imaginings of the infallibility of machines, means that predictions produced by such processes are imbued with the aura of objectivity. As a result, hard decisions – acting in contexts of radical uncertainty, and having to determine winners and losers – become easy ones based on limited considerations directed towards improving the lot of as many individuals as possible while doing least harm. In other words, big data transforms the need to act politically into the possibility of acting only technically.

EssayTHE FUTURE IS always arriving, in one form or another. There is no no future. It’s an absurdly simple point, like saying that one plus one equals two. But despite its apparent simplicity, it bears remembering because its corollary...

Essay‘WHEN YOU DON’T like whoever is in charge, you can vote them out. Right?’ It’s two in the morning, and I’m standing in the middle of the street outside my hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. The speaker is...