Article by Alison Kutler and Antonio Sweet: “Businesspeople too often assume that the relationship between government and the private sector is (and should be) adversarial. They imagine two opposing forces, each setting their bounds of control. But if you can envision government and business as platforms that interact with one other, it becomes apparent why the word code applies to both technology and law. A successful business leader works with regulation the way a successful app developer works with another company’s operating system: testing it, providing innovative ways to get results within the system’s constraints, and offering guidance, where... (More >)
The Structure of Bias
Paper by Gabbrielle M Johnson: “What is a bias? Standard philosophical views of both implicit and explicit bias focus this question on the representations one harbors, e.g., stereotypes or implicit attitudes, rather than the ways in which those representations (or other mental states) are manipulated. I call such views representationalism. In this paper, I argue that representationalism about bias is a mistake because it conceptualizes social bias in ways that do not fully capture the phenomenon. Crucially, such views fail to capture a heretofore neglected possibility of bias: one that influences an individual’s beliefs about and actions toward other... (More >)
Information to Action: Strengthening EPA Citizen Science Partnerships for Environmental Protection
Report by the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology: “Citizen science is catalyzing collaboration; new data and information brought about by greater public participation in environmental research are helping to drive a new era of environmental protection. As the body of citizen-generated data and information in the public realm continues to grow, EPA must develop a clear strategy to lead change and encourage action beyond the collection of data. EPA should recognize the variety of opportunities that it has to act as a conduit between the public and key partners, including state, territorial, tribal and local governments;... (More >)
4 reasons why Data Collaboratives are key to addressing migration
Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young at the Migration Data Portal: “If every era poses its dilemmas, then our current decade will surely be defined by questions over the challenges and opportunities of a surge in migration. The issues in addressing migration safely, humanely, and for the benefit of communities of origin and destination are varied and complex, and today’s public policy practices and tools are not adequate. Increasingly, it is clear, we need not only new solutions but also new, more agile, methods for arriving at solutions. Data are central to meeting these challenges and to enabling public policy... (More >)
Most Maps of the New Ebola Outbreak Are Wrong
Ed Kong in The Atlantic: “Almost all the maps of the outbreak zone that have thus far been released contain mistakes of this kind. Different health organizations all seem to use their own maps, most of which contain significant discrepancies. Things are roughly in the right place, but their exact positions can be off by miles, as can the boundaries between different regions. Sinai, a cartographer at UCLA, has been working with the Ministry of Health to improve the accuracy of the Congo’s maps, and flew over on Saturday at their request. For each health zone within the outbreak... (More >)
Citizen-generated evidence for a more sustainable and healthy food system
Research Report by Bill Vorley: “Evidence generation by and with low-income citizens is particularly important if policy makers are to improve understanding of people’s diets and the food systems they use, in particular the informal economy. The informal food economy is the main route for low-income communities to secure their food, and is an important source of employment, especially for women and youth. The very nature of informality means that the realities of poor people’s lives are often invisible to policymakers. This invisibility is a major factor in exclusion and results in frequent mismatches between policy and local realities.... (More >)
Blockchain as a force for good: How this technology could transform the sharing economy
Aaron Fernando at Shareable: “The volatility in the price of cryptocurrencies doesn’t matter to restaurateur Helena Fabiankovic, who started Baba’s Pierogies in Brooklyn with her partner Robert in 2015. Yet she and her business are already positioned to reap the real-world benefits of the technology that underpins these digital currencies — the blockchain — and they will be at the forefront of a sustainable, community-based peer-to-peer energy revolution because of it. So what does a restaurateur have to do with the blockchain and local energy? Fabiankovic is one of the early participants in the Brooklyn Microgrid, a project of... (More >)
Open Data Charter Measurement Guide
Guide by Ana Brandusescu and Danny Lämmerhirt: “We are pleased to announce the launch of our Open Data Charter Measurement Guide. The guide is a collaborative effort of the Charter’s Measurement and Accountability Working Group (MAWG). It analyses the Open Data Charter principles and how they are assessed based on current open government data measurement tools. Governments, civil society, journalists, and researchers may use it to better understand how they can measure open data activities according to the Charter principles. What can I find in the Measurement Guide? An executive summary for people who want to quickly understand what... (More >)
This is your office on AI
Article by Jeffrey Brown at a Special Issue of the Wilson Quarterly on AI: “The future has arrived and it’s your first day at your new job. You step across the threshold sporting a nervous smile and harboring visions of virtual handshakes and brain-computer interfaces. After all, this is one of those newfangled, modern offices that science-fiction writers have been dreaming up for ages. Then you bump up against something with a thud. No, it’s not one of the ubiquitous glass walls, but the harsh reality of an office that, at first glance, doesn’t appear much different from what... (More >)
Mapping the economy in real time is almost ‘within our grasp’
Delphine Strauss at the Financial Times: “The goal of mapping economic activity in real time, just as we do for weather or traffic, is “closer than ever to being within our grasp”, according to Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist. In recent years, “data has become the new oil . . . and data companies have become the new oil giants”, Mr Haldane told an audience at King’s Business School … But economics and finance have been “rather reticent about fully embracing this oil-rush”, partly because economists have tended to prefer a deductive approach that puts theory... (More >)