为什么大数据比不上好直觉

    大数据是一笔大生意。感应器、GPS跟踪、数学建模和人工智能给企业带来了大规模的实时市场洞察力，为监控、定位、衡量员工和顾客开辟了史无前例的新方法。分析公司高德纳（Gartner）预计，采用大数据技术的公司将“在所有可测的财务指标上超过竞争者20%。”

    大数据可能是“新的石油”，但我要提醒大家，不要把它当作一个新的信仰来崇拜。身处数据洪流之中，我们不仅失去了对商业的大局观，还失去了部分人性。如果我们认为更好的生活就等同于更好的算法，还能留下多少创新空间？

    我不是有数据恐惧症，我担忧的是纯粹依靠数据。我不反对定量的测量方法，但我质疑它们作为商业表现、社会繁荣和生活意义等重要指标的权威性。

    大数据有许多好处，不过我们还需要用“大直觉”来完善它。以下是六大理由：

    大数据=老大哥？《纽约时报》（New York Times）的史蒂夫•洛尔把大数据看作美国管理学家泰勒的“科学管理”的传承。泰勒主义的核心是业绩表现，而如今我们开始衡量快乐感和幸福感、消费偏好、社交关系、体育活动、态度、情绪、情感、行为和身体机能——换句话说，我们在评测自己的生活。

    当然，某种程度上说，“量化自身”的应用程序能让人们更好地控制自己的决定。然而，如此一来，我们就在自我改善这一想法的驱使下，把曾经私密的领域开放给了商业世界。

    大数据不具有社会性。人类是社会动物。研究显示，人与人之间的关系，尤其是友谊与婚姻，是快乐和自我实现的关键因素。我们的大脑有着关心的本能，我们的心脏和思想有着领会同类并与他们产生共鸣的惊人能力。我们能表现出同情，感受到情绪波动，察觉到非语言的细微暗示，容忍或拥抱，接受与拒绝，爱与痛，体会到我们所有的感受，做出不合理的举动，丧失自制力。这些人性的关键特质受到了里昂•维瑟提尔所称的“主观数字化”的威胁。

    最近的社会基因研究显示，数字过载不仅降低了我们的生产力，还削弱了我们进化出的与他人交流的能力。

    Big Data is big business. Sensors, GPS tracking, math modeling, and artificial intelligence offer companies real-time market insights at massive scale and open the door to unprecedented ways of monitoring, targeting, and measuring employees and customers. Analyst firm Gartner predicts that enterprises adopting Big Data technologies will "outperform competitors by 20 percent in every available financial metric."

    Big Data might well be "the new oil," but I would caution us not to worship it as the new religion. Amidst all the data frenzy, we are not only losing a more holistic view of business but also a part of our humanity. How much space do we leave for creativity if we equate better living with better algorithms?

    I am not a dataphobe, but I am concerned about relying only on data. I am not against quantitative metrics, but I question their authority as the main indicators of business performance, prosperous societies, and meaningful lives.

    Big Data comes with many benefits, but let's complement it with Big Intuition. Here are six reasons why:

    Big Data = Big Brother? The New York Times' Steve Lohr describes Big Data as a descendant of Taylor's "scientific management." Instead of performance in the workplace, which was the focus of Taylorism, we are now measuring happiness and well being, our consumption preferences, social interactions, physical activities, our attitudes, moods, emotions, behaviors, and bodily functions -- in other words, we are measuring our lives.

    Sure, to some degree, "quantified self" apps may empower people to take more control over their decisions. However, by doing so, we are opening up once-private terrain to the business world, all under the mandate of self-improvement.

    Big Data is not social. We humans are social animals. Research shows that relationships, especially friendship and marriage, are key factors of happiness and fulfillment. Our brains are wired to care, and our hearts and minds have developed an astounding capacity to empathize and sympathize with fellow humans. We can show compassion, sense mood swings, detect subtle non-verbal cues, tolerate or embrace, accept and reject, love and hurt, experience with all of our senses, act irrationally, and lose our self-control. These key traits of our humanity are threatened by the "mathematization of subjectivity," as Leon Wieseltier calls it.

    Recent social genomics studies suggest that not only our productivity, but also our evolutionary capacity to connect with others is diminished by digital overload.