In October 24, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, gave an epochal speech to a conference of European data officials. Many outside the technology industry have warned that we are sleepwalking our way through a vast transformation of politics, economy and society. Our world is being remade around us by data and by algorithms. Tools ...

By Henry J. Farrell, Alison Gopnik and James Evans The authors are social scientists. The Industrial Revolution was the birthplace of social science as we know it. Entire disciplines such as sociology, political science and economics came into being to analyze enormous social challenges and guide public debate on how to respond. Other social sciences ...