‘We were just trying to get it to work’: The failure that started the internet

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Scott Nover: “At the height of the Cold War, Charley Kline and Bill Duvall were two bright-eyed engineers on the front lines of one of technology’s most ambitious experiments. Kline, a 21-year-old graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Duvall, a 29-year-old systems programmer at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), were working on a system called Arpanet, short for the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Funded by the US Department of Defense, the project aimed to create a network that could directly share data without relying on telephone lines. Instead, this system used a method of data delivery called “packet switching” that would later form the basis for the modern internet.

It was the first test of a technology that would change almost every facet of human life. But before it could work, you had to log in.

Kline sat at his keyboard between the lime-green walls of UCLA’s Boelter Hall Room 3420, prepared to connect with Duvall, who was working a computer halfway across the state of California. But Kline didn’t even make it all the way through the word “L-O-G-I-N” before Duvall told him over the phone that his system crashed. Thanks to that error, the first “message” that Kline sent Duvall on that autumn day in 1969 was simply the letters “L-O”…(More)”.

Beached Plastic Debris Index; a modern index for detecting plastics on beaches

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Jenna Guffogg et al: “Plastic pollution on shorelines poses a significant threat to coastal ecosystems, underscoring the urgent need for scalable detection methods to facilitate debris removal. In this study, the Beached Plastic Debris Index (BPDI) was developed to detect plastic accumulation on beaches using shortwave infrared spectral features. To validate the BPDI, plastic targets with varying sub-pixel covers were placed on a sand spit and captured using WorldView-3 satellite imagery. The performance of the BPDI was analysed in comparison with the Normalized Difference Plastic Index (NDPI), the Plastic Index (PI), and two hydrocarbon indices (HI, HC). The BPDI successfully detected the plastic targets from sand, water, and vegetation, outperforming the other indices and identifying pixels with <30 % plastic cover. The robustness of the BPDI suggests its potential as an effective tool for mapping plastic debris accumulations along coastlines…(More)”.

More-than-human governance experiments in Europe

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Claudia Chwalisz & Lucy Reid: “There is a growing network of people and places exploring and practising how governance and policy design can draw on more-than-human intelligences.

‘More-than-human’ was initially coined by David Abram in his 1997 book The Spell of the Sensuous. The term refers to the animate earth and the impossibility of separating our human- ness from our relationship with it. Our exploration related to governance has been around how we might meaningfully consider our relationship with the living world when taking decisions.

We have undertaken a short exploratory research project to learn who is conducting new governance experiments in Europe to begin to map the field, learn from best practices, and share these findings…

There were three main types of approaches to applying the idea of more-than-human governance in practice, sometimes with an overlap:

  • Rights-based;
  • Representation-focused, and 
  • Artistic.

We identified four key groups we felt were missing from our initial research and discussions:

  • Indigenous voices;
  • More non-specialists and artists;
  • A few critical voices, and
  • People using technology in novel ways that reshape our relationship with the living world…(More)”

The history of AI and power in government

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book chapter by Shirley Kempeneer: “…begins by examining the simultaneous development of statistics and the state. Drawing on the works of notable scholars like Alain Desrosières, Theodore Porter, James Scott, and Michel Foucault, the chapter explores measurement as a product of modernity. It discusses the politics and power of (large) numbers, through their ability to make societies legible and controllable, also in the context of colonialism. The chapter then discusses the shift from data to big data and how AI and the state, just like statistics and the state, are mutually constitutive. It zooms in on shifting power relations, discussing the militarization of society, the outsourcing of the state to tech contractors, the exploitation of human bodies under the guise of ‘automation’, and the oppression of vulnerable citizens. Where news media often focus on the power of AI, that is supposedly escaping our control, this chapter relocates power in AI-systems, building on the work of Kate Crawford, Bruno Latour, and Emily Bender…(More)”

Addressing Data Challenges to Drive the Transformation of Smart Cities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Ekaterina Gilman et al: “Cities serve as vital hubs of economic activity and knowledge generation and dissemination. As such, cities bear a significant responsibility to uphold environmental protection measures while promoting the welfare and living comfort of their residents. There are diverse views on the development of smart cities, from integrating Information and Communication Technologies into urban environments for better operational decisions to supporting sustainability, wealth, and comfort of people. However, for all these cases, data are the key ingredient and enabler for the vision and realization of smart cities. This article explores the challenges associated with smart city data. We start with gaining an understanding of the concept of a smart city, how to measure that the city is a smart one, and what architectures and platforms exist to develop one. Afterwards, we research the challenges associated with the data of the cities, including availability, heterogeneity, management, analysis, privacy, and security. Finally, we discuss ethical issues. This article aims to serve as a “one-stop shop” covering data-related issues of smart cities with references for diving deeper into particular topics of interest…(More)”.

Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Aidan Toner-Rodgers: “… studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product innovation. These compounds possess more novel chemical structures and lead to more radical inventions. However, the technology has strikingly disparate effects across the productivity distribution: while the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the output of top researchers nearly doubles. Investigating the mechanisms behind these results, I show that AI automates 57% of “idea-generation” tasks, reallocating researchers to the new task of evaluating model-produced candidate materials. Top scientists leverage their domain knowledge to prioritize promising AI suggestions, while others waste significant resources testing false positives. Together, these findings demonstrate the potential of AI-augmented research and highlight the complementarity between algorithms and expertise in the innovative process. Survey evidence reveals that these gains come at a cost, however, as 82% of scientists report reduced satisfaction with their work due to decreased creativity and skill underutilization…(More)”.

We Need To Talk About Climate: How Citizens’ Assemblies Can Help Us Solve The Climate Crisis

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Graham Smith: “Citizens’ assemblies bring the shared wisdom of ordinary people into political decision-making. How might they help us address the climate crisis? The transition to net zero and climate resilient societies requires deep social and economic transformations that will have significant effects on citizens’ lives. Such a transition needs to engage the public directly. Climate assemblies show us how this can be done.

This book explains the variety of climate assemblies that have taken place so far at local, national and international levels and explains why they have captured the imagination of government and activists alike. It examines the different contexts and designs of climate assemblies and assesses their impact. Drawing lessons from current practice, the book demonstrates how assemblies can take us beyond the shortcomings of electoral and partisan politics and how they can have a real and lasting impact on climate policy and politics…(More)”.

Digital Media Metaphors

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Johan Farkas and Marcus Maloney: “Bringing together leading scholars from media studies and digital sociology, this edited volume provides a comprehensive introduction to digital media metaphors, unpacking their power and limitations.

Digital technologies have reshaped our way of life. To grasp their dynamics and implications, people often rely on metaphors to provide a shared frame of reference. Scholars, journalists, tech companies, and policymakers alike speak of digital clouds, bubbles, frontiers, platforms, trolls, and rabbit holes. Some of these metaphors distort the workings of the digital realm and neglect key consequences. This collection, structured in three parts, explores metaphors across digital infrastructures, content, and users. Within these parts, each chapter examines a specific metaphor that has become near-ubiquitous in public debate. Doing so, the book engages not only with the technological, but also the social, political, and environmental implications of digital technologies and relations.

This unique collection will interest students and scholars of digital media and the broader fields of media and communication studies, sociology, and science and technology studies…(More)”.

Privacy during pandemics: Attitudes to public use of personal data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Eleonora Freddi and Ole Christian Wasenden: “In this paper we investigate people’s attitudes to privacy and sharing of personal data when used to help society combat a contagious disease, such as COVID-19. Through a two-wave survey, we investigate the role of personal characteristics, and the effect of information, in shaping privacy attitudes. By conducting the survey in Norway and Sweden, which adopted very different strategies to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, we analyze potential differences in privacy attitudes due to policy changes. We find that privacy concern is negatively correlated with allowing public use of personal data. Trust in the entity collecting data and collectivist preferences are positively correlated with this type of data usage. Providing more information about the public benefit of sharing personal data makes respondents more positive to the use of their data, while providing additional information about the costs associated with data sharing does not change attitudes. The analysis suggests that stating a clear purpose and benefit for the data collection makes respondents more positive about sharing. Despite very different policy approaches, we do not find any major differences in privacy attitudes between Norway and Sweden. Findings are also similar between the two survey waves, suggesting a minor role for contextual changes…(More)”

Voice and Access in AI: Global AI Majority Participation in Artificial Intelligence Development and Governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Sumaya N. Adan et al: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly emerging as one of the most transformative technologies in human history, with the potential to profoundly impact all aspects of society globally. However, access to AI and participation in its development and governance is concentrated among a few countries with advanced AI capabilities, while the ‘Global AI Majority’ – defined as the population of countries primarily encompassing Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe – is largely excluded. These regions, while diverse, share common challenges in accessing and influencing advanced AI technologies.

This white paper investigates practical remedies to increase voice in and access to AI governance and capabilities for the Global AI Majority, while addressing the security and commercial concerns of frontier AI states. We examine key barriers facing the Global AI Majority, including limited access to digital and compute infrastructure, power concentration in AI development, Anglocentric data sources, and skewed talent distributions. The paper also explores the dual-use dilemma of AI technologies and how it motivates frontier AI states to implement restrictive policies.

We evaluate a spectrum of AI development initiatives, ranging from domestic model creation to structured access to deployed models, assessing their feasibility for the Global AI Majority. To resolve governance dilemmas, we propose three key approaches: interest alignment, participatory architecture, and safety assurance…(More)”.