With real-time decisions, Citi Bike breaks the cycle of empty stations

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Melanie Lefkowitz at Cornell Chronicle: “Cornell research has improved bike sharing in New York and other cities, providing tools to ensure bikes are available when and where they’re needed through a crowdsourcing system that uses real-time information to make decisions.

Citi Bike redistributes its bicycles around New York City using a program called Bike Angels, based on research by David Shmoys, the Laibe/Acheson Professor of Business Management and Leadership Studies in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering.

Through Bike Angels, which Shmoys helped Citi Bike develop three years ago, cyclists earn points adding up to free rides and other prizes by using or returning bikes at certain high-need stations. Originally, Bike Angels awarded points for the same pattern of stations every morning, and a different fixed pattern each afternoon rush; now the program uses an algorithm that continually updates the pattern of stations for which users earn points.

“The ability to make decisions that are sensitive to exactly what are today’s conditions enables us to be much more effective in assigning those points,” said Shmoys, who is also associate director of Cornell’s Institute for Computational Sustainability.

With co-authors Hangil Chung ’18 and Daniel Freund, Ph.D. ’18, Shmoys wrote “Bike Angels: An Analysis of Citi Bike’s Incentive Program,” a detailed report showing the effectiveness of this approach. …(More)”.

How to Prevent Winner-Takes-All Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Kaushik Basu at Project Syndicate: “Democracy is in crisis. Fake news – and fake allegations of fake news – now plagues civil discourse, and political parties have proved increasingly willing to use xenophobia and other malign strategies to win elections. At the same time, revisionist powers like Vladimir Putin’s Russia have been stepping up their efforts to interfere in elections across the West. Rarely has the United States witnessed such brazen attacks on its political system; and rarely has the world seen such lows during peacetime….

How can all of this be happening in democracies, and what can be done about it?

On the first question, one hypothesis is that new digital technologies are changing the structural incentives for corporations, political parties, and other major institutions. Consider the case of corporations. The wealth of proprietary data on consumer preferences and behavior is producing such massive returns to scale that a few giants are monopolizing markets. In other words, markets are increasingly geared toward a winner-take-all game: multiple corporations can compete, but to the victor go the spoils.1

Electoral democracy is drifting in the same direction. The benefits of winning an election have become so large that political parties will stoop to new lows to clinch a victory. And, as with corporations, they can do so with the help of data on electoral preferences and behavior, and with new strategies to target key constituencies.

This poses a dilemma for well-meaning democratic parties and politicians. If a “bad” party is willing to foment hate and racism to bolster its chances of winning, what is a “good” party to do? If it sticks to its principles, it could end up ceding victory to the “bad” party, which will do even more harm once it is in office. A “good” party may thus try to forestall that outcome by taking a step down the moral ladder, precipitating a race to the bottom. This is the problem with any winner-takes-all game. When second place confers no benefits, the cost of showing unilateral restraint can grow intolerably high.

But this problem is not as hopeless as it appears. In light of today’s crisis of democracy, we would do well to revisit Václav Havel’s seminal 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless.” First published as samizdat that was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia, the essay makes a simple but compelling argument. Dictatorships and other seemingly omnipotent forms of authoritarianism may look like large, top-down structures, but in the final analysis, they are merely the outcome of ordinary individuals’ beliefs and choices. Havel did not have the tools of modern economic theory to demonstrate his argument formally. In my new book The Republic of Beliefs, I show that the essence of his argument can be given formal structure using elementary game theory. This, in turn, shows that ordinary individuals have moral options that may be unavailable to the big institutional players….(More)”.

Better ways to measure the new economy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Valerie Hellinghausen and Evan Absher at Kauffman Foundation: “The old measure of “jobs numbers” as an economic indicator is shifting to new metrics to measure a new economy.

With more communities embracing inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems as the new model of economic development, entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders, and government agencies – at all levels – need to work together on data-driven initiatives. While established measures still have a place, new metrics have the potential to deliver the timely and granular information that is more useful at the local level….

Three better ways to measure the new economy:

  1. National and local datasets:Numbers used to discuss the economy are national level and usually not very timely. These numbers are useful to understand large trends, but fail to capture local realities. One way to better measure local economies is to use local administrative datasets. There are many obstacles with this approach, but the idea is gaining interest. Data infrastructure, policies, and projects are building connections between local and national agencies. Joining different levels of government data will provide national scale and local specificity.
  1. Private and public data:The words private and public typically reflect privacy issues, but there is another public and private dimension. Public institutions possess vast amounts of data, but so do private companies. For instance, sites like PayPal, Square, Amazon, and Etsy possess data that could provide real-time assessment of an individual company’s financial health. The concept of credit and risk could be expanded to benefit those currently underserved, if combined with local administrative information like tax, wage, and banking data. Fair and open use of private data could open credit to currently underfunded entrepreneurs.
  1. New metrics:Developing connections between different datasets will result in new metrics of entrepreneurial activity: metrics that measure human connection, social capital, community creativity, and quality of life. Metrics that capture economic activity at the community level and in real time. For example, the Kauffman Foundation has funded research that uses labor data from private job-listing sites to better understand the match between the workforce entrepreneurs need and the workforce available within the immediate community. But new metrics are not enough, they must connect to the final goal of economic independence. Using new metrics to help ecosystems understand how policies and programs impact entrepreneurship is the final step to measuring local economies….(More)”.

When Westlaw Fuels Ice Surveillance: Ethics in the Big Data Policing Era

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Sarah Lamdan at New York University Review of Law & Social Change: “Legal research companies are selling surveillance data and services to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agencies.

This article discusses ethical issues that arise when lawyers buy and use legal research services sold by the vendors that build ICE’s surveillance systems. As the legal profession collectively pays millions of dollars for computer assisted legal research services, lawyers should consider whether doing so in the era of big data policing compromises their confidentiality requirements and their obligation to supervise third party vendors….(More)”

An Overview of National AI Strategies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Medium Article by Tim Dutton: “The race to become the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) has officially begun. In the past fifteen months, Canada, China, Denmark, the EU Commission, Finland, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Nordic-Baltic region, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, the UAE, and the UK have all released strategies to promote the use and development of AI. No two strategies are alike, with each focusing on different aspects of AI policy: scientific research, talent development, skills and education, public and private sector adoption, ethics and inclusion, standards and regulations, and data and digital infrastructure.

This article summarizes the key policies and goals of each strategy, as well as related policies and initiatives that have announced since the release of the initial strategies. It also includes countries that have announced their intention to develop a strategy or have related AI policies in place….(More)”.

‘To own or not to own?’ A study on the determinants and consequences of alternative intellectual property rights arrangements in crowdsourcing for innovation contests

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Nuran Acur, Mariangela Piazza and Giovanni Perrone: “Firms are increasingly engaging in crowdsourcing for innovation to access new knowledge beyond their boundaries; however, scholars are no closer to understanding what guides seeker firms in deciding the level at which to acquire rights from solvers and the effect that this decision has on the performance of crowdsourcing contests.

Integrating Property Rights Theory and the problem solving perspective whist leveraging exploratory interviews and observations, we build a theoretical framework to examine how specific attributes of the technical problem broadcast affect the seekers’ choice between alternative intellectual property rights (IPR) arrangements that call for acquiring or licensing‐in IPR from external solvers (i.e. with high and low degrees of ownership respectively). Each technical problem differs in the knowledge required to be solved as well as in the stage of development it occurs of the innovation process and seeker firms pay great attention to such characteristics when deciding about the IPR arrangement they choose for their contests.

In addition, we analyze how this choice between acquiring and licensing‐in IPR, in turn, influences the performance of the contest. We empirically test our hypotheses analyzing a unique dataset of 729 challenges broadcast on the InnoCentive platform from 2010 to 2016. Our results indicate that challenges related to technical problems in later stages of the innovation process are positively related to the seekers’ preference toward IPR arrangements with a high level of ownership, while technical problems involving a higher number of knowledge domains are not.

Moreover, we found that IPR arrangements with a high level of ownership negatively affect solvers’ participation and that IPR arrangement plays a mediating role between the attributes of the technical problem and the solvers’ self‐selection process. Our article contributes to the open innovation and crowdsourcing literature and provides practical implications for both managers and contest organizers….(More)”.

JPMorgan is quietly building an IBM Watson-like platform

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Frank Chaparro at BusinessInsider: “JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank is best known for advising businesses on billion-dollar acquisitions, helping private unicorns tap into the public markets, and managing the cash of Fortune 500 companies.

But now it is quietly working on a new platform that would go far beyond anything the firm has previously done, using crowdsourcing to accumulate massive amounts of data intended to one day help its clients make complex decisions about how to run their businesses, according to people familiar with the project.

For JPMorgan’s clients like asset-management firms and hedge funds, it could provide new data sets to help investors squeeze out more alpha from their models or better price assets. But JPMorgan is looking to go beyond the buy side to help its large corporate clients as well. The platform could, for example, help retailers figure out where to build their next store, inform manufacturers about how to revamp systems in their factories, and improve logistics management for delivery services companies, the people said.

The platform, called Roar by JPMorgan, would store sensitive private data, such as hospital records or satellite imagery, that’s not in the public domain. Typically, this type of information is exchanged between firms on a bilateral arrangement so it is not improperly used. But Roar would allow clients to tap into this data, which they could then use in a secure fashion to make forecasts and gain business insights….

Right now, the platform is being tested internally with public data and JPMorgan is collaborating with academics to answer questions such as predicting traffic patterns or future air pollution….(More)”.

Citizen science, public policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Christi J. Guerrini, Mary A. Majumder,  Meaganne J. Lewellyn, and Amy L. McGuire in Science: “Citizen science initiatives that support collaborations between researchers and the public are flourishing. As a result of this enhanced role of the public, citizen science demonstrates more diversity and flexibility than traditional science and can encompass efforts that have no institutional affiliation, are funded entirely by participants, or continuously or suddenly change their scientific aims.

But these structural differences have regulatory implications that could undermine the integrity, safety, or participatory goals of particular citizen science projects. Thus far, citizen science appears to be addressing regulatory gaps and mismatches through voluntary actions of thoughtful and well-intentioned practitioners.

But as citizen science continues to surge in popularity and increasingly engage divergent interests, vulnerable populations, and sensitive data, it is important to consider the long-term effectiveness of these private actions and whether public policies should be adjusted to complement or improve on them. Here, we focus on three policy domains that are relevant to most citizen science projects: intellectual property (IP), scientific integrity, and participant protections….(More)”.

How Social Media Came To The Rescue After Kerala’s Floods

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Kamala Thiagarajan at NPR: Devastating rainfall followed by treacherous landslides have killed 210 people since August 8 and displaced over a million in the southern Indian state of Kerala. India’s National Disaster Relief Force launched its biggest ever rescue operation in the state, evacuating over 10,000 people. The Indian army and the navy were deployed as well.

But they had some unexpected assistance.

Thousands of Indian citizens used mobile phone technology and social media platforms to mobilize relief efforts….

In many other cases, it was ordinary folk who harnessed social media and their own resources to play a role in relief and rescue efforts.

As the scope of the disaster became clear, the state government of Kerala reached out to software engineers from around the world. They joined hands with the state-government-run Information Technology Cell, coming together on Slack, a communications platform, to create the website www.keralarescue.in

The website allowed volunteers who were helping with disaster relief in Kerala’s many flood-affected districts to share the needs of stranded people so that authorities could act.

Johann Binny Kuruvilla, a travel blogger, was one of many volunteers. He put in 14-hour shifts at the District Emergency Operations Center in Ernakulam, Kochi.

The first thing he did, he says, was to harness the power of Whatsapp, a critical platform for dispensing information in India. He joined five key Whatsapp groups with hundreds of members who were coordinating rescue and relief efforts. He sent them his number and mentioned that he would be in a position to communicate with a network of police, army and navy personnel. Soon he was receiving an average of 300 distress calls a day from people marooned at home and faced with medical emergencies.

No one trained volunteers like Kuruvilla. “We improvised and devised our own systems to store data,” he says. He documented the information he received on Excel spreadsheets before passing them on to authorities.

He was also the contact point for INSPIRE, a fraternity of mechanical engineering students at a government-run engineering college at Barton Hill in Kerala. The students told him they had made nearly 300 power banks for charging phones, using four 1.5 volt batteries and cables, and, he says, “asked us if we could help them airdrop it to those stranded in flood-affected areas.” A power bank could boost a mobile phone’s charge by 20 percent in minutes, which could be critical for people without access to electricity. Authorities agreed to distribute the power banks, wrapping them in bubble wrap and airdropping them to areas where people were marooned.

Some people took to social media to create awareness of the aftereffects of the flooding.

Anand Appukuttan, 38, is a communications designer. Working as a consultant he currently lives in Chennai, 500 miles by road from Kerala, and designs infographics, mobile apps and software for tech companies. Appukuttan was born and brought up in Kottayam, a city in South West Kerala. When he heard of the devastation caused by the floods, he longed to help. A group of experts on disaster management reached out to him over Facebook on August 18, asking if he would share his time and expertise in creating flyers for awareness; he immediately agreed….(More)”.

Self-Invasion And The Invaded Self

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Rochelle Gurstein in the Baffler: “WHAT DO WE LOSE WHEN WE LOSE OUR PRIVACY? This question has become increasingly difficult to answer, living as we do in a society that offers boundless opportunities for men and women to expose themselves (in all dimensions of that word) as never before, to commit what are essentially self-invasions of privacy. Although this is a new phenomenon, it has become as ubiquitous as it is quotidian, and for that reason, it is perhaps one of the most telling signs of our time. To get a sense of the sheer range of unconscious exhibitionism, we need only think of the popularity of reality TV shows, addiction-recovery memoirs, and cancer diaries. Then there are the banal but even more conspicuous varieties, like soaring, all-glass luxury apartment buildings and hotels in which inhabitants display themselves in all phases of their private lives to the casual glance of thousands of city walkers below. Or the incessant sound of people talking loudly—sometimes gossiping, sometimes crying—on their cell phones, broadcasting to total strangers the intimate details of their lives.

And, of course, there are now unprecedented opportunities for violating one’s own privacy, furnished by the technology of the internet. The results are everywhere, from selfies and Instagrammed trivia to the almost automatic, everyday activity of Facebook users registering their personal “likes” and preferences. (As we recently learned, this online pastime is nowhere near as private as we had been led to believe; more than fifty million users’ idly generated “data” was “harvested” by Cambridge Analytica to make “personality profiles” that were then used to target voters with advertisements from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.)

Beyond these branded and aggressively marketed forums for self-invasions of privacy there are all the giddy, salacious forms that circulate in graphic images and words online—the sort that led not so long ago to the downfall of Anthony Weiner. The mania for attention of any kind is so pervasive—and the invasion of privacy so nonchalant—that many of us no longer notice, let alone mind, what in the past would have been experienced as insolent violations of privacy….(More)”.