Trusting Big Data? A Critique from Confucian Trust

Policy-makers around the globe have increasingly rely on Big Data in public decision-making. The adoption of Big Data analytics in the public sphere has raised a number of socio-ethical issues, including, most prominently, discrimination, privacy, and responsibility. Beyond these socio-ethical issues, however, there is a more fundamental issue associated with the use of Big Data in policy-making, i.e. the problem of (dis)trust. In a recent commentary, Gernot Rieder and Judith Simon rightly pointed out that the use of Big Data in policy-making is grounded on a specific mode of trust, and that this mode of trust has been diffused to the public through the adoption of Big Data. Accordingly, the question of (dis)trust in Big Data demands a closer scrutiny, as critiques of Big Data through privacy, discrimination, and irresponsibility remain futile if the mode of trust promoted by Big Data prevails. In this presentation, I shall examine the mode of trust promoted by Big Data, and argue — along with philosophers of science and technology — for the importance of a normative account of trust in the critique of Big Data. Finally, I shall offer a critique of Big Data in policy-making via a Confucian notion of trust.