Stefaan Verhulst
Michael A. Johansson & Daniela Saderi in Nature: “The public call for rapid sharing of research data relevant to the COVID-19 outbreak (see go.nature.com/2t1lyp6) is driving an unprecedented surge in (unrefereed) preprints. To help pinpoint the most important research, we have launched Outbreak Science Rapid PREreview, with support from the London-based charity Wellcome. This is an open-source platform for rapid review of preprints related to emerging outbreaks (see https://outbreaksci.prereview.org).
These reviews comprise responses to short, yes-or-no questions, with optional commenting. The questions are designed to capture structured, high-level input on the importance and quality of the research, which can be aggregated across several reviews. Scientists who have ORCID IDs can submit their reviews as they read the preprints (currently limited to the medRxiv, bioRxiv and arXiv repositories). The reviews are open and can be submitted anonymously.
Outbreaks of pathogens such as the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that is responsible for COVID-19 move fast and can affect anyone. Research to support outbreak response needs to be fast and open, too, as do mechanisms to review outbreak-related research. Help other scientists, as well as the media, journals and public-health officials, to find the most important COVID-19 preprints now….(More)”.
Paper by Lauren Henry Scholz: “Generalist confusion about the technology behind complex algorithms has led to inconsistent case law for algorithmic contracts. Case law explicitly grounded in the principle that algorithms are constructive agents for the companies they serve would provide a clear basis for enforceability of algorithmic contracts that is both principled from a technological perspective and is readily intelligible and able to be applied by generalists….(More)”.
Paper by Shweta Suran, Vishwajeet Pattanaik, and Dirk Draheim: “Over the last few years, Collective Intelligence (CI) platforms have become a vital resource for learning, problem solving, decision-making, and predictions. This rising interest in the topic has to led to the development of several models and frameworks available in published literature.
Unfortunately, most of these models are built around domain-specific requirements, i.e., they are often based on the intuitions of their domain experts and developers. This has created a gap in our knowledge in the theoretical foundations of CI systems and models, in general. In this article, we attempt to fill this gap by conducting a systematic review of CI models and frameworks, identified from a collection of 9,418 scholarly articles published since 2000. Eventually, we contribute by aggregating the available knowledge from 12 CI models into one novel framework and present a generic model that describes CI systems irrespective of their domains. We add to the previously available CI models by providing a more granular view of how different components of CI systems interact. We evaluate the proposed model by examining it with respect to six popular, ongoing CI initiatives available on the Web….(More)”.
About: “Welcome to CarDataFacts.eu! This website provides a fact-based overview on everything related to the sharing of vehicle-generated data with third parties. Through a series of educational infographics, this website answers the most common questions about access to car data in a clear and simple way.
CarDataFacts.eu also addresses consumer concerns about sharing data in a safe and a secure way, as well as explaining some of the complex and technical terminology surrounding the debate.
CarDataFacts.eu is brought to you by ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, which represents the 15 Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers….(More)”.
Abhishek Nagaraj and Scott Stern in the Journal of Economic Perspectives: “For centuries, maps have codified the extent of human geographic knowledge and shaped discovery and economic decision-making. Economists across many fields, including urban economics, public finance, political economy, and economic geography, have long employed maps, yet have largely abstracted away from exploring the economic determinants and consequences of maps as a subject of independent study. In this essay, we first review and unify recent literature in a variety of different fields that highlights the economic and social consequences of maps, along with an overview of the modern geospatial industry. We then outline our economic framework in which a given map is the result of economic choices around map data and designs, resulting in variations in private and social returns to mapmaking. We highlight five important economic and institutional factors shaping mapmakers’ data and design choices. Our essay ends by proposing that economists pay more attention to the endogeneity of mapmaking and the resulting consequences for economic and social welfare…(More)”.
Book by Arwid Lund and Mariano Zukerfeld: “This book tackles the concept of openness (as in open source software, open access and free culture), from a critical political economy perspective to consider its encroachment by capitalist corporations, but also how it advances radical alternatives to cognitive capitalism.
Drawing on four case studies, Corporate Capitalism’s Use of Openness will add to discussion on open source software, open access content platforms, open access publishing, and open university courses. These otherwise disparate cases share two fundamental features: informational capitalist corporations base their successful business models on unpaid productive activities, play, attention, knowledge and labour, and do so crucially by resorting to ideological uses of concepts such as “openness”, “communities” and “sharing”.
The authors present potential solutions and alternative regulations to counter these exploitative and alienating business models, and to foster digital knowledge commons, ranging from co-ops and commons-based peer production to state agencies’ platforms. Their research and findings will appeal to students, academics and activists around the world in fields such as sociology, economy, media and communication, library and information science, political sciences and technology studies….(More)”.
Book edited by Morag McDermont, Tim Cole, Janet Newman and Angela Piccini: “There is an urgent need to rethink relationships between systems of government and those who are ‘governed’. This book explores ways of rethinking those relationships by bringing communities normally excluded from decision-making to centre stage to experiment with new methods of regulating for engagement.
Using original, co-produced research, it innovatively shows how we can better use a ‘bottom-up’ approach to design regulatory regimes that recognise the capabilities of communities at the margins and powerfully support the knowledge, passions and creativity of citizens. The authors provide essential guidance for all those working on co-produced research to make impactful change…(More)”.
Article by Hannah Bloch-Wehba: “This Article assesses recent efforts to compel or encourage online platforms to use automated means to prevent the dissemination of unlawful online content before it is ever seen or distributed. As lawmakers in Europe and around the world closely scrutinize platforms’ “content moderation” practices, automation and artificial intelligence appear increasingly attractive options for ridding the Internet of many kinds of harmful online content, including defamation, copyright infringement, and terrorist speech. Proponents of these initiatives suggest that requiring platforms to screen user content using automation will promote healthier online discourse and will aid efforts to limit Big Tech’s power.
In fact, however, the regulations that incentivize platforms to use automation in content moderation come with unappreciated costs for civil liberties and unexpected benefits for platforms. The new automation techniques exacerbate existing risks to free speech and user privacy and create ripe new sources of information for surveillance, aggravating threats to free expression, associational rights, religious freedoms, and equality. Automation also worsens transparency and accountability deficits. Far from curtailing private power, the new regulations endorse and expand platform authority to police online speech, with little in the way of oversight and few countervailing checks. New regulations of online intermediaries should therefore incorporate checks on the use of automation to avoid exacerbating these dynamics. Carefully drawn transparency obligations, algorithmic accountability mechanisms, and procedural safeguards can help to ameliorate the effects of these regulations on users and competition…(More)”.
Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson at Pew Research Center: “The years of almost unfettered enthusiasm about the benefits of the internet have been followed by a period of techlash as users worry about the actors who exploit the speed, reach and complexity of the internet for harmful purposes. Over the past four years – a time of the Brexit decision in the United Kingdom, the American presidential election and a variety of other elections – the digital disruption of democracy has been a leading concern.
The hunt for remedies is at an early stage. Resistance to American-based big tech firms is increasingly evident, and some tech pioneers have joined the chorus. Governments are actively investigating technology firms, and some tech firms themselves are requesting government regulation. Additionally, nonprofit organizations and foundations are directing resources toward finding the best strategies for coping with the harmful effects of disruption. For example, the Knight Foundation announced in 2019 that it is awarding $50 million in grants to encourage the development of a new field of research centered on technology’s impact on democracy.
In light of this furor, Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center canvassed technology experts in the summer of 2019 to gain their insights about the potential future effects of people’s use of technology on democracy….
The main themes found in an analysis of the experts’ comments are outlined in the next two tables….(More)”.
Paper by Darcy W E Allen and Chris Berg: ” Understanding the considerations and complexities of blockchain governance is urgent. The aim of this paper is to draw on institutional governance theory — including corporate governance — to provide insights into the core considerations in designing blockchain governance mechanisms.
We define blockchain governance are the processes by which stakeholders (those who are affected by and can affect the network) exercise bargaining power over the network. The main considerations include how we define stakeholders in blockchain governance, how the consensus mechanism itself distributes endogenous bargaining power between those stakeholders, the role of exogenous governance mechanisms and institutional frameworks, and the needs for bootstrapping. While we can learn from corporate and internet governance, blockchain governance should be understood as being an institutionally distinct organisational form with distinct governance systems….(More)”.