Social Big Data Le phantasme d’une nouvelle physique sociale

This article questions the virtualities that oscillate between imagination and technological innovation throughout the writings of Alex “Sandy” Pentland. If today's Big Data is contributing to the most enthusiastic and to the most pessimistic discourse on the terms of our sociotechnological development, it is because it opens up an incredible field of foresight. But these virtualities are embodied in real technological innovations whose relevance we must now question.