mathbabe

I’m psyched to see Suresh Naidu tonight in the first Data Skeptics Meetup. He’s talking about Political Uses and Abuses of Data and his abstract is this:

While a lot has been made of the use of technology for election campaigns, little discussion has focused on other political uses of data. From targeting dissidents and tax-evaders to organizing protests, the same datasets and analytics that let data scientists do prediction of consumer and voter behavior can also be used to forecast political opponents, mobilize likely leaders, solve collective problems and generally push people around. In this discussion, Suresh will put this in a 1000 year government data-collection perspective, and talk about how data science might be getting used in authoritarian countries, both by regimes and their opponents.

Given the recent articles highlighting this kind of stuff, I’m sure the topic will provoke a lively discussion – my favorite kind!

Unfortunately the Meetup is full but I’d love you guys to give suggestions for more speakers and/or more topics.