Numerati - Softcover

Stephen Baker

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224080571 ISBN 13: 9780224080576

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2008

Synopsis

In a world teeming with data, we ourselves become the math nerds' most prized specimens. In The Numerati Stephen Baker, a Business Week senior writer, takes us on a guided tour (no maths required) through an unprecedented new era, in which mathematicians are starting to map individual human behaviour - what we do, who we are, how we work, chat, play and shop -- and in so doing, will change every aspect of our lives, from the kind of medical advice we get, to the adverts we see, to our appraisals at work, to the way politicians try to win our votes and protect us from terrorist attacks.There's the robotic librarian using a combination of algebra and geometry to analyse thousands of press articles and blog posts in English.Then there are the mathematicians helping to map out advertising campaigns, changing the nature of research in newsrooms and in biology labs, enabling marketers to forge new one-on-one relationships with customers. Baker asks the fundamental If long articles full of twists and turns can be reduced to a mathematical essence, what's next? Will the power of mathematicians to make sense of personal data and to model the behaviour of individuals inevitably erode privacy?More and more of the world economy is falling into the realm of numbers.The Numerati is a book about one of the great undertakings of the 21st century - the mathematical modelling of humanity. Much in the same way as neuroscientists are mapping our brains, mathematicians are mapping our individual behaviour -- everything that makes the individual distinct. Stephen Baker navigates us through a world that otherwise might seem remote or disconnected, but one which is absolutely relevant to our everyday lives.

About this title

About the Author

Stephan Baker has written for many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer. He won an Overseas Press Club Award for his portrait of the rising Mexican auto industry. He is the coauthor of Blogspotting.net, featured as one of fifty blogs to watch by the New York Times.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

What will the Numerati learn about us as they run us into dizzying combinations of numbers? First they need to find us.
Say you're a potential SUV shopper in the northern suburbs of New York, or a churchgoing, antiabortion Democrat in Alburquerque. Maybe you're a Java programmer ready to relocate to Hyderabad, or a jazz-loving, Chianti-sipping Sagittarius looking for walks in the country and snuggles by the fireplace in Stockholm, or--heaven help us--maybe you're eager to strap bombs to your waist and climb onto a bus.
Whatever you are--and each of us is a lot of things--companies and governments want to identify and locate you. The Numerati also want to alter our behavior. If we're shopping, they want us to buy more. At the workplace, they're out to boost our productivity.
When we're patients, they want us healthier and cheaper. As companies like IBM and Amazon roll out early models of us, they can predict our behavior and experiment with us. They can simulate changes in a store or an office and see how we would likely react. And they can attempt to calculate mathematically how to boost our performance. How would shoppers like me respond to a $100 rebate on top-of-the-line Nikon cameras?
How much more productive would you be at the office if you had a $600 course on spreadsheets? How would our colleagues cope if the company eliminated our positions, or folded them into operations in Bangalore? We don't have to participate, or even know that our mathematical ghosts are laboring night and day as lab rats. We'll receive the results of these studies--the optimum course--as helpful suggestions, prescriptions, or marching orders.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224080571
• ISBN 13: 9780224080576
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224