The mythology surrounding “big data” rests on the notion that technical systems can increase efficiency and decrease bias. Such “neutral” systems are supposedly good for implementing legal logic because, like these systems, law relies on binaries in decision-making, removing the gray and fuzzy from the equation. The problem with this formulation is that efficiency is not necessarily desirable, bias is baked into the data sets and reified technically as well as through interpretation, and legal binaries are neither socially productive nor logically sound.

– danah boyd