The TED conferences (Technology, Entertainment, Design) have grown over the years from a small exclusive symposium for venture capitalists and technology professionals into a network of 1,000 such symposia viewed online by over 300 million people each year (just for reference, that’s roughly the population of the U.S.). The conferences seem to have literally grown into their motto, “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It’s fitting that symposia It’s fitting that with this growth one of the major themes in presentation was so-called “big data”; massive collections of raw data that provide “big picture” illustrations of complex things. The Glory of Big Data, a recent blog post by Juan Enriquez for Popular Science, hails big data as the next “step change” in our technological progress. However, looking at something as truly game-changing as big data, one needs to keep a measured optimism.

Enriquez points to the sequencing o the human genome as one of the indicative stories of big data’s game-changing nature. A decade ago, mapping the human genome required pushing the computers at that time to their computational limits. Computers were just able to process the DNA sequences necessary to map out the entire genome, and as Enriquez points out, this massive undertaking turned Craig Ventner’s DNA computing lab into the highest energy consumer in the state of Maryland at that time. Now, the computing power has increased to the point where DNA can be sequenced relatively easily, and protein-to-protein sequences (or “folding”) which requires multiples of the computing power that DNA sequencing does, is now becoming the norm. In fact, the sequencing of one’s own genome could because as affordable as $1,000 a person in the next decade.

What are the implications of such vast stores of knowledge? As Enriquez envisions, it’s the difference between warehousing data, or recording it, and programming it. To extend the example of the human genome, it’s the difference between sequencing the DNA to understanding it, and using the DNA sequences to program new life; correcting chromosomal damage, rewriting a dysfunctional gene, creating life. “In other words,” he writes, “in this new era—the transition from digital code to digital-plus-life code—the capacity to generate data exceeds our capacity to store and process it.” But it won’t be that way forever.

I’m warily excited to see an era where the sheer amount of information can be processed in such a way as we can begin to rewrite whatever we’re looking at. The ability to compile such depth of information about a single person, whether it be their genetic makeup or their personnel profile, that one can literally extrapolate anything they want. As we’ve seen in the evolution of the Internet Age so far, just having tons of information is only a part of the story. Who controls the information? How can you tell what’s relevant and what isn’t? Who could profit from it and how does one protect the information in a digital world? These are questions that need to be answered as we are reaching the point where “big data” is becoming “big business”.