

Big Data can Define Morality - dfuhriman
http://www.bernmedical.com/1/post/2013/02/big-data-can-define-morality.html

======
dfuhriman
Here is an article I have been working on. I am interested in hearing feedback
from HN community.

Premise is we can measure effects of decisions and define morality on what
happens. If outcomes are good: moral. If outcomes are bad: immoral.

~~~
lutusp
We may be able to evaluate decisions based on the new regime of copious data,
but it's a stretch to suggest a connection with morality.

The efficacy of a choice can easily be measured with great and copious data.
But the morality of a choice is a different way of looking at decisions, and
it's not obvious how morality be evaluated with a quantifier like massive
amounts of data.

> If outcomes are good: moral. If outcomes are bad: immoral.

The words "good" and "bad" have the same problem as "moral" -- quantification
is orthogonal to "goodness". Big data can only quantify, it can't judge
something on moral grounds.

In 1600, everyone believed that astrology worked and was a personal asset. If
we had had big data at that time, studies that only quantified would have
revealed that nearly everyone believed that astrology was useful.

At that time, everyone thought astrology was factual, and everyone was wrong.
No amount of data collection could have gotten around this structural problem.

Today, everyone seems to think antidepression drugs work, and if we judged the
value of antidepression drugs using quantitative methods, we would have a
clear winner. But as it turns out, antidepression drugs don't work, and a
data-based, quantitative measure of their popularity is very misleading -- it
only reveals the degree to which the placebo effect drives public beliefs.

It's the same with moral questions -- big data has a limited role if what's
being measures is a mass delusion.

~~~
dfuhriman
I address some simple framing of how to define "good" and "bad" in the
article. I think we can borrow from US Declaration of Independence- anything
that helps preserve and promote the "self-evident, inalienable rights" is
good.

Edit: my first comment above was a tl;dr - but I suggest reading the whole
article.

