Big Data, Big Decisions: A Workshop for a Research Agenda on the Social, Economic and Workforce Implications of Big Data

该项目将支持一个为期两天的研讨会，题为“大数据分析和决策对社会、经济和劳动力的影响”，该研讨会将于2014年1月举行。大数据是对大型数据集的分析和应用，是计算机科学研究的一个重要的新领域，已经产生了许多新的期刊、会议和资助机会，以及对实践的极大兴趣。包括美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）在内的各类公共和私营部门组织都在对大数据进行巨额投资，因为它们有充分理由相信，数据分析方面的创新可以在公共卫生和安全、经济竞争力和消费者福利等领域带来巨大利益。与此同时，历史清楚地表明，创新并不总是能实现其预期的利益，而且它们有时会产生负面（除了积极的）意想不到的后果。研讨会的目标是制定一个关于大数据对社会、经济和劳动力影响的研究议程，以调动这一重要领域的研究势头。研讨会将汇集政策制定者和代表一系列相关学科和观点的主题专家，包括计算机科学、经济学、社会科学和哲学。研讨会将分为全体会议和分组会议，围绕四个主要主题：1)对公民和社会生活的影响（例如，民主参与和人际交往），2)对就业和经济机会的影响（例如，工作机会和质量以及获得信贷和投资机会），3)对科学和创新的影响（例如，科学实践和奖励以及研发结构），以及4)对关键基础设施的影响（例如，公共卫生和安全和金融系统稳定）。知识价值：本次研讨会将通过制定系统研究议程来推进计算机科学和工程，以记录新出现的后果，并预测大数据可能的未来后果。研究像大数据这样的革命性技术创新对社会、经济和劳动力产生的影响的科学具有挑战性，原因至少有两个。首先，它本质上是跨学科的。第二，这种科学要有用，就必须具有预见性和事后性，但是评价前瞻性研究的标准和方法仍然很新。更广泛的影响：大数据在许多对社会至关重要的领域越来越重要，包括卫生、金融和科学。然而，目前的研究主要集中在基础技术上，而对社会、经济和劳动力的影响在很大程度上没有得到研究。本次研讨会的成果将帮助研究人员确定理解这些影响的关键问题，并为未来的研究阐明可能的方法。

This project will support a two-day workshop entitled "The Social, Economic and Workforce Implications of Big Data Analysis and Decision-Making" to be held in January 2014. Big Data, the analysis and application of very large datasets, is an important new area of computer science research that has given rise to a number of new journals, conferences and funding opportunities as well as great interest in practice. Public and private sectors organizations of all kinds, including the National Science Foundation, are making huge investments in Big Data in the well-justified belief that innovations in data analytics can bring enormous benefits in such areas as public health and safety, economic competitiveness and consumer welfare. At the same time, history makes clear that innovations do not always realize their intended benefits and that they sometimes have negative (in addition to positive) unintended consequences. The goal of the workshop is to develop an agenda for research on the Social, Economic and Workforce consequences of Big Data to mobilize research momentum in this important area.The workshop will bring together policy makers and subject matter experts representing a range of relevant disciplines and perspectives, including computer science, economics, social sciences, and philosophy. The workshop will be organized as plenary and breakout sessions, organized around four major themes: 1) consequences for citizens and social life (e.g., democratic participation and interpersonal interaction), 2) consequences for employment and economic opportunity (e.g., job availability and quality and access to credit and investment opportunities), 3) consequences for science and innovation (e.g., scientific practices and rewards and the structure of R&D), and 4) consequences for critical infrastructure (e.g., public health and safety and financial system stability). Intellectual Merit: The workshop will advance computer science and engineering by developing an agenda for systemic research to document emerging consequences and to anticipate plausible future consequences of Big Data. The science of the social, economic, and workforce consequences of revolutionary technological innovations like Big Data is challenging for at least two reasons. First, it is inherently interdisciplinary. Second, to be useful, such a science must be anticipatory as well as post-hoc, but criteria and approaches for evaluating forward-looking research are still nacent. Broader Impacts: Big data is growing in importance for many areas critical to society, including health, finance and science. However, current research is focused primarily on the underlying technology, leaving the societal, economic and workforce impacts largely unexamined. The outputs of this workshop will help researchers identify the key issues in understanding these impacts and articulate possible approaches for future research.