So, gentle reader, I think we’ve done with Big Data. After last month’s column (you didn’t read it?) I have been inundated with simply several emails (and a very strange handwritten note, on what appeared to be toilet paper, pushed under my door) some of which notified me of how much I could claim back having been mis-sold PPI, others telling me how I have been left millions by a Nigerian uncle I didn’t know I had and actually none of them commenting on my thoughts on the Data that is, apparently, Big. So I’m done with that, then.

Those of you who did read what I had to say on the topic of BD will remember that I saw it as the new social. The objet brillant des nos jours. Like social, I prophesied, without Big Data nothing would have any value any more. Philosophical discourse and theoretical thinking would be meaningless. We all become slaves to the numbers – and anything presented for serious consideration will have to be accompanied by a side order of BD (and here’s the kicker) whether it needs it or not. Art may actually be dead.

But I was wrong. There is a much bigger picture here. A greater game afoot, one which combines the isolation of social, the generalisation of big data and the de-sensitisation of hi-tech. We may, as a race, have finally succeeded in putting ourselves out of a job. And I hope we’re satisfied.

It’s the rise of the Smart Society that’s giving me the societal heebie-jeebies right now, folks. As the UK gears up for an interesting old bun fight in May, our leaders are all scrabbling around for bandwagons, and infrastructure, the parlous state of, is always a good one. Whether it’s built infrastructure, transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure or tech infrastructure, what everyone can agree on is that infrastructure is a Good Thing, and currently sadly lacking.

Which encourages further thinking about future-proofing said infrastructure, which is where this insidious talk about the Smart Society begins to creep in. For if you’re building for tomorrow, why not build for tomorrow’s technology? Let’s incorporate the internet of things, the apps of the future and let’s make sure that it’s all Big Data-driven. The device in your pocket will tell you where to go, where to park when you get there, what to buy, where to eat, what to pay for the privilege. It’ll carry your tickets, and your wallet, your tax code and your NI number.

What is now accepted as time-saving and convenient – automated ticket machines, automated check-in kiosks, automated tills – will become the only way to transact. (Sorry – came over all American there – or would that be ‘transactorize’?) Imagine it, a life defined by social media, infinitely further isolated by the increasing automation of everyday activity.

Already major companies are working on customer education programmes – which will be non-intrusive and thus hardly noticeable – which encourage and incentivise us (the man on the DLR) to interface with the machine and be happy in so doing. It saves time, we’re told, it reduces queues, it gets you on your way – and it’s true, it does.

Back in 2000, I was working for a pub company. A journalist phoned me up to get my take on a world powered by e-commerce – surely this would spell the end of the boozer and the bricks’n’mortar gig in general? No, quoth I, for everyone wants to deal with a real person or at least feel safe in the knowledge that they can, after a hard day buying tat on eBay.

My fear now is that, when you’ve walked to the pub, updating your Facebook status as you go, delivering some bon mot on Twitter, posting an arty piccy on the ’Gram, you’ll get to the bar and find it’s been converted to a Smartspoons. And you’rebeing served by Brian from confused.com