Innovations & technologies

Are Our Intelligence Agencies Getting The Wrong Advice?

Perhaps the greatest question as we look back on the state of data analytics today is how we got here. How did the early mathematical-driven promise of “big data” and “social media analytics” devolve into a marketing-led hype-laden world of hyperbole in which we no longer seem to actually care what our data says or how it is changing out from underneath us? Part of the answer may lie in the fact that even our nation’s most prestigious scientific advisors have succumbed to the siren song of mining “must have” datasets without fully understanding what they look like inside and whether the insights they yield reflect reality. The National Academies recently completed a report for the US intelligence community exploring the use of emerging technology, including social media, for US intelligence needs, outlining a 10-year research agenda. The Academies’ response to questions about the social media components of that report remind us that even our most respected and austere scholarly institutions are not immune to the hype around “big data,” with dangerous implications to the future of our national security.