Melanie Swanm@melanieswan.com

January 9, 2014

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

Science and Society

How can big-picture science thinking help society and vice-versa?

January 9, 2014FQXi 2

World-Shaping Science and Society Trends

Image: http://www.sydmead.com

January 9, 2014FQXi

3 billion new Internet Users by 2020

3Source: Peter Diamandis, Singularity University, July 2013

876543210

Impact: Majority of worldwide population starting to access and self-enable with science and technology

January 9, 2014FQXi

Global Population: Growing and Aging

4Source: UN Habitat – 2010

http://avondaleassetmanagement.blogspot.com/2012/05/japan-aging-population.html

January 9, 2014FQXi

Over 50% worldwide population in 2008 5 billion in 2030 (estimated)

Human Urbanization: Living in Cities

5Source: Copenhagen Pollution Levels, MIT Senseable City Lab

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Megacity Growth Rates

Megacity: (>10 million inhabitants

and ~2,000/km2

density)

Source: Wikipedia

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Wireless Internet-of-Things (IOT)

Source: Swan, M. Sensor Mania! The Internet of Things, Objective Metrics, and the Quantified Self 2.0. J Sens Actuator Netw (2012) 1(3), 217-253.

Image credit: Cisco

January 9, 2014FQXi

12 billion Internet-connected devices 2016

8Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/growth-in-the-internet-of-things-2013-10?IR=T1Vinge, V. Who’s Afraid of First Movers? The Singularity Summit 2012

3 year doubling cycle

Usual computing gadgetry (e.g.; smartphones) and everyday objects: cars, food, clothing, appliances, buildings, roads

Embedded chips in 5% of human-constructed objects (2012)1

January 9, 2014FQXi 9

Annual data creation in zettabytes (10007 bytes) 90% of the world’s data created in the last 2 years

Defining Trend of Current Era: Big Data

Source: Mary Meeker, Internet Trends, http://www.kpcb.com/insights/2013-internet-trendshttp://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/healthcare-leveraging-big-data-paper.pdf

2 year doubling cycle

January 9, 2014FQXi

Expanded Concept of Conduct of Science

1. Larger Scope of Activity Computational complement to every field

Discovery speed-ups due to modeling, simulation, and prediction Shift from characterization to pro-active construction in tight

feedback loops enabling new fields: synthetic biology

10

Experimental

ObservationalTheoretical Computational Applied

Source: Kido, Swan, et al. Systematic evaluation of personal genome services. Nature: Journal of Human Genetics (2013) 58, 734–741.

January 9, 2014FQXi

Expanded Concept of Conduct of Science

2. Larger Scale of Activity Harnessing technology-driven crowd models

Faster, lower-cost, orders-of-magnitude scale-up (permutation) The crowd as big data processing nodes

11

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Institutional Research

Peer Studies

Quantified Self

DIY Community Data Competitions

Serious Gaming 3D Bioprinting

Crowdsourced Participation

Citizen Science Organized

Source: Swan, M. Crowdsourced Health Research Studies. J Med Internet Res (2012) 14(2):e46.

January 9, 2014FQXi

Information Connects Science and Society

Wholly different relation to information Formerly everything signal, now 99% noise Exception, variability, probability, patterns, prediction

New kinds of information Longitudinal baseline measures, normal deviation patterns,

contingency adjustments, anomaly, emergence Multiple data analysis paradigms: time, frequency, episode, cycle

New kinds of models supplementing scientific method Machine learning, hierarchical representation, neural networks,

information visualization

12Source: Swan, M. The Quantified Self. Big Data (2013) 1(2): 85-99.

January 9, 2014FQXi

Sense of Ourselves as Information Generators

13

January 9, 2014FQXi

Summary: Science and Society

New era of scientific discovery with a greatly expanded range of possibilities due to big data, computation, and crowd participation

Our attunement to technology as an enabling background helps us see the possibilities for the true meaningfulness of our being - Heidegger

14Source: Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology (1954).

Melanie Swanm@melanieswan.com

January 9, 2014

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

Science and Society

Thank you!