Politics of prediction

TLDR

Security professionals increasingly adopt computing language and methods for prediction, with digital devices and big data promising insights into unknown futures. This article investigates how prediction is transforming today by situating it within governmental apparatuses of discipline, biopower, and big data. The digital mode of prediction with big data reconfigures governance, illustrated by predictive policing’s use of hotspots and near‑real‑time decisions. The authors argue that big‑data prediction creates a distinct time/space of “between‑ness” that reshapes governance, as demonstrated by the predictive policing example.

Abstract

From ‘connecting the dots’ and finding ‘the needle in the haystack’ to predictive policing and data mining for counterinsurgency, security professionals have increasingly adopted the language and methods of computing for the purposes of prediction. Digital devices and big data appear to offer answers to a wide array of problems of (in)security by promising insights into unknown futures. This article investigates the transformation of prediction today by placing it within governmental apparatuses of discipline, biopower and big data. Unlike disciplinary and biopolitical governmentality, we argue that prediction with big data is underpinned by the production of a different time/space of ‘between-ness’. The digital mode of prediction with big data reconfigures how we are governed today, which we illustrate through an analysis of how predictive policing actualizes between-ness as hotspots and near-real-time decisions.