#806 James Cortada - Birth of Modern Facts; Information, Government, Business, and Science
RECORDED ON JUNE 30th 2023.
Dr. James W. Cortada is Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota. He worked at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, managerial, and research positions. His latest book is Birth of Modern Facts: How the Information Revolution Transformed Academic Research, Governments, and Businesses.
This is our second talk. Watch the first one here: https://youtu.be/l2VQRnsW2XY
In this episode, we focus on Birth of Modern Facts. We first discuss what information is, and how it changes over time. We talk about governments as suppliers of information. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of reading physical books versus e-books. We talk about the role of computer scientists, statisticians, economists, and political scientists. We discuss how science works. We talk about businesses, and how they relate to governments. We discuss the issue of misinformation, and solutions like information literacy and regulation. We talk about the pros and cons of Big Data. We discuss if AI can render humans obsolete in dealing with information. Finally, we talk about understudied questions in the history of information.
Time Links:
Intro
What is information, and how it changes over time
Governments as suppliers of information
Reading physical books versus e-books
The role of computer scientists
How statistics changed the way information is processed and presented
How science works
Economics
Political science, and polls
The role of businesses, and how they relate to governments
Misinformation, information literacy, and regulation
The pros and cons of Big Data
Can AI render humans obsolete in dealing with information?
Understudied questions in the history of information
Follow Dr. Cortada’s work!
Follow Dr. Cortada’s work:
University page: http://bit.ly/43CzIZQ
Works on ResearchGate: https://bit.ly/2MP8NaC
Birth of Modern Facts: https://bit.ly/43rIEAT