Stefaan Verhulst

What if Sociologists Had as Much Influence as Economists?

Curated on March 19, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Neil Irwin in the New York Times: “Another academic discipline may not have the ear of presidents but may actually do a better job of explaining what has gone wrong in large swaths of the United States and other advanced nations in recent years.

Sociologists spend their careers trying to understand how societies work. And some of the most pressing problems in big chunks of the United States may show up in economic data as low employment levels and stagnant wages but are also evident in elevated rates of depression, drug addiction and premature death. In other words, economics is only a piece of a broader, societal problem. So maybe the people who study just that could be worth listening to.

“Once economists have the ears of people in Washington, they convince them that the only questions worth asking are the questions that economists are equipped to answer,” said Michèle Lamont, a Harvard sociologist and president of the American Sociological Association. “That’s not to take anything away from what they do. It’s just that many of the answers they give are very partial.”

As a small corrective, I took a dive into some sociological research with particular relevance to the biggest problems facing communities in advanced countries today to understand what kinds of lessons the field can offer. In 1967, Senator Walter Mondale actually proposed a White House Council of Social Advisers; he envisioned it as a counterpart to the well-entrenched Council of Economic Advisers. It was never created, but if it had been, this is the sort of advice it might have been giving recent presidents….

If the White House Council of Social Advisers did exist, one of its great challenges would be to convert some of these findings into actual policy proposals that might help. Part of the ascendance of economics in the policy-making sphere comes from the fact that economists tend to spend more time looking at specific legislative or regulatory steps that could try to improve conditions.

And trying to solve social problems is a more complex undertaking than working to improve economic outcomes. It’s relatively clear how a change in tax policy or an adjustment to interest rates can make the economy grow faster or slower. It’s less obvious what, if anything, government can do to change forces that are driven by the human psyche.

But there is a risk that there is something of a vicious cycle at work. “When no one asks us for advice, there’s no incentive to become a policy field,” Professor Gans said.

It may be true that these lessons on identity and community don’t lend themselves immediately to policy white papers and five-point plans. But a deeper understanding of them sure could help policy makers….(More)”

Google DeepMind and healthcare in an age of algorithms

Curated on March 19, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Julia Powles and Hal Hodson in Health and Technology: “Data-driven tools and techniques, particularly machine learning methods that underpin artificial intelligence, offer promise in improving healthcare systems and services. One of the companies aspiring to pioneer these advances is DeepMind Technologies Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Google conglomerate, Alphabet Inc. In 2016, DeepMind announced its first major health project: a collaboration with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, to assist in the management of acute kidney injury. Initially received with great enthusiasm, the collaboration has suffered from a lack of clarity and openness, with issues of privacy and power emerging as potent challenges as the project has unfolded. Taking the DeepMind-Royal Free case study as its pivot, this article draws a number of lessons on the transfer of population-derived datasets to large private prospectors, identifying critical questions for policy-makers, industry and individuals as healthcare moves into an algorithmic age….(More)”

Digital Democracy in Belgium and the Netherlands. A Socio-Legal Analysis of Citizenlab.be and Consultatie.nl

Curated on March 18, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Chapter by Koen Van Aeken in: Prins, C. et. al (eds.) Digital Democracy in a Globalized World (Edward Elgar, 2017), Forthcoming: “The research question is how technologies characterized by ubiquitous Web 2.0 interactivity may contribute to democracy. Following a case study design, two applications were evaluated: the Belgian CitizenLab, a mobile, social and local private application to support public decision making in cities, and the Dutch governmental website Internetconsultatie. Available data suggest that the Dutch consultation platform is mainly visited by the ‘usual suspects’ and lacks participatory functionalities. In contrast, CitizenLab explicitly aims at policy co-creation through broad participation. Its novelty, however, prevents making sound empirical statements.

A comprehensive conceptualization precedes the case studies. To avoid instrumentalist reduction, the social setting of the technologies is reconstructed. Since its constituents, embedding and expectations – initially represented as the nation state and representative democracy – are increasingly challenged, their transformations are consequently discussed. The new embedding emerges as a governance constellation; new expectations concern the participatory dimension of politics. Future assessments of technologies may benefit from this conceptualization….(More)”

Prediction and explanation in social systems

Curated on March 17, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Jake M. Hofman, Amit Sharma, and Duncan J. Watts in Science: “Historically, social scientists have sought out explanations of human and social phenomena that provide interpretable causal mechanisms, while often ignoring their predictive accuracy. We argue that the increasingly computational nature of social science is beginning to reverse this traditional bias against prediction; however, it has also highlighted three important issues that require resolution. First, current practices for evaluating predictions must be better standardized. Second, theoretical limits to predictive accuracy in complex social systems must be better characterized, thereby setting expectations for what can be predicted or explained. Third, predictive accuracy and interpretability must be recognized as complements, not substitutes, when evaluating explanations. Resolving these three issues will lead to better, more replicable, and more useful social science….(More)”

Regulating by Robot: Administrative Decision Making in the Machine-Learning Era

Curated on March 17, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Cary Coglianese and David Lehr: “Machine-learning algorithms are transforming large segments of the economy, underlying everything from product marketing by online retailers to personalized search engines, and from advanced medical imaging to the software in self-driving cars. As machine learning’s use has expanded across all facets of society, anxiety has emerged about the intrusion of algorithmic machines into facets of life previously dependent on human judgment. Alarm bells sounding over the diffusion of artificial intelligence throughout the private sector only portend greater anxiety about digital robots replacing humans in the governmental sphere.

A few administrative agencies have already begun to adopt this technology, while others have the clear potential in the near-term to use algorithms to shape official decisions over both rulemaking and adjudication. It is no longer fanciful to envision a future in which government agencies could effectively make law by robot, a prospect that understandably conjures up dystopian images of individuals surrendering their liberty to the control of computerized overlords. Should society be alarmed by governmental use of machine learning applications?

We examine this question by considering whether the use of robotic decision tools by government agencies can pass muster under core, time-honored doctrines of administrative and constitutional law. At first glance, the idea of algorithmic regulation might appear to offend one or more traditional doctrines, such as the nondelegation doctrine, procedural due process, equal protection, or principles of reason-giving and transparency.

We conclude, however, that when machine-learning technology is properly understood, its use by government agencies can comfortably fit within these conventional legal parameters. We recognize, of course, that the legality of regulation by robot is only one criterion by which its use should be assessed. Obviously, agencies should not apply algorithms cavalierly, even if doing so might not run afoul of the law, and in some cases, safeguards may be needed for machine learning to satisfy broader, good-governance aspirations. Yet in contrast with the emerging alarmism, we resist any categorical dismissal of a future administrative state in which key decisions are guided by, and even at times made by, algorithmic automation. Instead, we urge that governmental reliance on machine learning should be approached with measured optimism over the potential benefits such technology can offer society by making government smarter and its decisions more efficient and just….(More)”

Data collaboratives as “bazaars”? A review of coordination problems and mechanisms to match demand for data with supply

Curated on March 16, 2017July 19, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Iryna Susha , Marijn Janssen , and Stefaan Verhulst in Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy: “In “data collaboratives” private and public organizations coordinate their activities to leverage data to address a societal challenge. This paper focuses on analyzing challenges and coordination mechanisms of data collaboratives….This study uses coordination theory to identify and discuss the coordination problems and coordination mechanisms associated with data collaboratives. We also use a taxonomy of data collaborative forms from a previous empirical study to discuss how different forms of data collaboratives may require different coordination mechanisms….

The study analyzed data collaboratives from the perspective of organizational and task levels. At the organizational level we argue that data collaboratives present an example of the bazaar form of coordination. At the task level we identified five coordination problems and discussed potential coordination mechanisms to address them, such as coordination by negotiation, by third party, by standardization, to name a few…This study is one of the first few to systematically analyze the phenomenon of “data collaboratives”.

…can help practitioners understand better the coordination challenges they may face when initiating a data collaborative and to develop successful data collaboratives by using coordination mechanisms to mitigate these challenges…(More)”

From disaster planning to conservation: mobile phones as a new tracking tool

Curated on March 15, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Rob Harcourt, Carlos Duarte, and Mark Meekan in The Conversation: “We can learn a lot about things by studying how they move through the world and interact with the environment.

In the past, for example, it was possible to study the mobility of people within the United States by monitoring things such as the movement of banknotes. Today we can use something that is much more global and widely available than US cash.

Mobile phones have almost totally infiltrated human society, with the number estimated at more than 7 billion in 2014. Ownership of mobile phones continues to grow, even in some of the poorest countries.

Many of those phones are geolocated, continuously providing the geographic location of the user, so effectively acting as tracking devices for human populations.

As biologists, our understanding of animals has been transformed over the past four decades by our ability to track their movements and behaviour.

We were interested to see what we can learn from the use of mobile phones tracking, as we show in a study published this month in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

It’s now possible to use the mobile phone data to gain a better insight into human movement under certain conditions.

For example, mobile phone data was used to study the movement of people during the 2010 earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak in Haiti, and Hurricane Sandy in the United States in 2012.

It was interesting to note that the human reaction to escape from certain events we found was close to that of some animal groups, such as birds and fish, when fleeing from attack.

Such studies can help predict how people will respond in the future to any emergencies, and help to improve the delivery of any aid or disaster relief.

Conservation with mobile phones

The detail, immediacy and sheer volume of data from mobile phones also offers innovative ways to monitor and possibly solve some of the most pressing conservation problems that animal populations now face.

For example, geolocated phones are changing the way we tackle the crisis of illegal wildlife trade.

Not only is it a major driver of species extinctions, but the human cost is high with more than 1,000 wildlife rangers killed in the line of duty over a ten-year period.

In India, rangers on the front line use a smartphone app to monitor movements and record sightings of targeted species, such as tigers, and to report suspicious activity.

In Africa, mobile phones help rangers collate social and environmental information about reserves and encounter rates with animals killed by poachers….(More)”

Tactical Data Engagement guide

Curated on March 15, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Katya Abazajian and Stephen Larrick at the Sunlight Foundation: “United States cities face a critical challenge when it comes to fulfilling the potential of open data: that of moving beyond the mere provision of access to data toward the active facilitation of stakeholder use of data in ways that bring about community impact. Sunlight has been researching innovative projects and strategies that have helped cities tackle this challenge head on. Today we’re excited to share a guide for our new approach to open data in U.S. cities–an approach we’re calling “Tactical Data Engagement,” designed to drive community impact by connecting the dots between open data, public stakeholders, and collaborative action.

Access is critical but we have more work to do

Many city leaders have realized that open data is a valuable innovation to bring to city hall, and have invoked the promise of a new kind of relationship between government and the people: one where government works with the public in new collaborative ways. City mayors, managers, council members, and other leaders are making commitments to this idea in the US, with over 60 US cities having adopted open data reforms since 2006, nearly 20 in 2016 alone–many with the help of the Sunlight team as part of our support of the What Works Cities initiative. While cities are building the public policy infrastructure for open data, they are also making technical advancements as municipal IT and innovation departments build or procure new open data portals and release more and more government datasets proactively online….

However, … these developments alone are not enough. Portals and policies are critical infrastructure for the data-driven open government needed in the 21st century; but there has been and continues to be a disconnect between the rhetoric and promise of open data when compared to what it has meant in terms of practical reform. Let us be clear: the promise of open data is not about data on a website. The promise is for a new kind of relationship between government and the governed, one that brings about collaborative opportunities for impact. While many reforms have been successful in building an infrastructure of access, many have fallen short in leveraging that infrastructure for empowering residents and driving community change.

Announcing Tactical Data Engagement

In order to formulate an approach to help cities go further with their open data programs, Sunlight has been conducting an extensive review of the relevant literature on open data impact, and of the literature on approaches to community stakeholder engagement and co-creation (both civic-tech or open-data driven as well as more traditional)….

The result so far is our “Tactical Data Engagement” Guide (still in beta) designed to address what we see as the the most critical challenge currently facing the open data movement: helping city open data programs build on a new infrastructure of access to facilitate the collaborative use of open data to empower residents and create tangible community impact…(More)”

Congress Takes Blockchain 101

Curated on March 15, 2017May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Mike Orcutt at MIT Technology Review: “Congressman David Schweikert is determined to enlighten his colleagues in Washington about the blockchain. The opportunities the technology creates for society are vast, he says, and right now education is key to keeping the government from “screwing it up.”

Schweikert, a Republican from Arizona, co-chairs the recently launched Congressional Blockchain Caucus. He and fellow co-chair, Democratic Representative Jared Polis of Colorado, say they created it in response to increasing interest and curiosity on Capitol Hill about blockchain technology. “Members of Congress are starting to get visits from people that are doing things with the blockchain and talking about it,” says Polis. “They are interested in learning more, and we hope to provide the forum to do that.”

Blockchain technology is difficult to explain, and misconceptions among policymakers are almost inevitable. One important concept Schweikert says more people need to understand is that a blockchain is not necessarily Bitcoin, and there are plenty of applications of blockchains beyond transferring digital currency. Digital currencies, and especially Bitcoin, the most popular blockchain by far, make some policymakers and government officials wary. But focusing on currency keeps people from seeing the potential the blockchain has to reinvent how we control and manage valuable information, Schweikert argues.

A blockchain is a decentralized, online record-keeping system, or ledger, maintained by a network of computers that verify and record transactions using established cryptographic techniques. Bitcoin’s system, which is open-source, depends on people all around the world called miners. They use specialized computers to verify and record transactions, and receive Bitcoin currency in reward. Several other digital currencies work in a similar fashion.

Digital currency is not the main reason so many institutions have begun experimenting with blockchains in recent years, though. Blockchains can also be used to securely and permanently store other information besides currency transaction records. For instance, banks and other financial companies see this as a way to manage information vital to the transfer of ownership of financial assets more efficiently than they do now. Some experiments have involved the Bitcoin blockchain, some use the newer blockchain software platform called Ethereum, and others have used private or semi-private blockchains.

The government should adopt blockchain technology too, say the Congressmen. A decentralized ledger is better than a conventional database “whenever we need better consumer control of information and security” like in health records, tax returns, voting records, and identity management, says Polis. Several federal agencies and state governments are already experimenting with blockchain applications. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, is running a test to track data from its border surveillance devices in a distributed ledger….

Services for transferring money fall under the jurisdiction of several federal regulators, and face a patchwork of state licensing laws. New blockchain-based business models are challenging traditional notions of money transmission, she says, and many companies are unsure where they fit in the complicated legal landscape.

Boring has argued that financial technology companies would benefit from a regulatory safe zone, or “sandbox”—like those that are already in place in the U.K. and Singapore—where they could test products without the risk of “inadvertent regulatory violations.” We don’t need any new legislation from Congress yet, though—that could stifle innovation even more, she says. “What Congress should be doing is educating themselves on the issues.”…(More)”