Will choosing privacy become a handicap?

04/24/13 22:59:00    

By Michael Mealling

This week has been Big Data Week in Atlanta and privacy and data governance come up from time to time. At tonights meeting it came up again so I posed this question:

Applying machine learning algorithms to our decisions will give us significant new capabilities. But to do that the systems need the data. Will those who choose to opt-out because of privacy concerns be at a disadvantage similar to the disadvantage the unaugmented may have cognitively and physically?

That is the fear that sites like stopthecyborgs.com are based on.

I absolutely respect anyone's right to opt-out. But what will be the cost? Will the lives of the digitally and physically augmented be so different from the unaugmented and private that, not only will they not be able to communicate, there won't be anything worth communicating about?