Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC.

Coming up, a controversial, fated, highly opinionated filmmaker

gives us his damning verdict on the modern age of big data.

I do think that there is an underlying feeling that the theory of big data does create.

It's this sense that there is a hidden reality

that the machines can understand. Out of that comes a sense that not of helplessness, but a weakness,

that you as a human being will never have the ability to shape the world the way you want it to be.

The world according to Adam Curtis. That's all in today's

business daily from the BBC. Richard Nixon came to power because he had harnessed a new force.

He called it the silent majority. They were the people in the suburbs

who not only felt isolated and alone, but also increasingly fearful of the chaos in America.

The truth was that he was also uncertain and frightened too, just like them.

A characteristically unsettling moment there from Can't Get You Out of My Head,

the unconventional BBC documentary series from a pretty unconventional filmmaker.

Inspired by the rise of populism in 2016,

Adam Curtis says his series, a sprawling archive of beautifully edited clips and music,

began as an investigation about why the critics of Donald Trump and Brexit

were unable to offer an alternative vision of their own for the future.

The series was variously hailed by critics as dazzling, a dense and ambitious triumph, terrifying,

even a masterpiece. But also, it was called incoherent and implausible by some.

Either way, Adam Curtis has become something of a cult figure worldwide.

An emotional history of the modern world is the subtitle of the latest masterwork,

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