Collection

Our Hackable Political Future

Curated on February 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Henry J. Farrell and Rick Perlstein at the New York Times: “….A program called Face2Face, developed at Stanford, films one person speaking, then manipulates that person’s image to resemble someone else’s. Throw in voice manipulation technology, and you can literally make anyone say anything — or at least seem to….

Another harrowing potential is the ability to trick the algorithms behind self-driving cars to not recognize traffic signs. Computer scientists have shown that nearly invisible changes to a stop sign can fool algorithms into thinking it says yield instead. Imagine if one of these cars contained a dissident challenging a dictator.

In 2007, Barack Obama’s political opponents insisted that footage existed of Michelle Obama ranting against “whitey.” In the future, they may not have to worry about whether it actually existed. If someone called their bluff, they may simply be able to invent it, using data from stock photos and pre-existing footage.

The next step would be one we are already familiar with: the exploitation of the algorithms used by social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to spread stories virally to those most inclined to show interest in them, even if those stories are fake.

It might be impossible to stop the advance of this kind of technology. But the relevant algorithms here aren’t only the ones that run on computer hardware. They are also the ones that undergird our too easily hacked media system, where garbage acquires the perfumed scent of legitimacy with all too much ease. Editors, journalists and news producers can play a role here — for good or for bad.

Outlets like Fox News spread stories about the murder of Democratic staff members and F.B.I. conspiracies to frame the president. Traditional news organizations, fearing that they might be left behind in the new attention economy, struggle to maximize “engagement with content.”

This gives them a built-in incentive to spread informational viruses that enfeeble the very democratic institutions that allow a free media to thrive. Cable news shows consider it their professional duty to provide “balance” by giving partisan talking heads free rein to spout nonsense — or amplify the nonsense of our current president.

It already feels as though we are living in an alternative science-fiction universe where no one agrees on what it true. Just think how much worse it will be when fake news becomes fake video. Democracy assumes that its citizens share the same reality. We’re about to find out whether democracy can be preserved when this assumption no longer holds….(More)”.

Should We Treat Data as Labor? Moving Beyond ‘Free’

Curated on February 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Imanol Arrieta Ibarra, Leonard Goff, Diego Jiménez Hernández and Jaron Lanier: “In the digital economy, user data is typically treated as capital created by corporations observing willing individuals. This neglects users’ role in creating data, reducing incentives for users, distributing the gains from the data economy unequally and stoking fears of automation. Instead treating data (at least partially) as labor could help resolve these issues and restore a functioning market for user contributions, but may run against the near-term interests of dominant data monopsonists who have benefited from data being treated as ‘free’. Countervailing power, in the form of competition, a data labor movement and/or thoughtful regulation could help restore balance….(More)”.

Behavioral Analysis of International Law: On Lawmaking and Nudging

Curated on February 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Doron Teichman and Eyal Zamir: “… examines the application of insights from behavioral economics to the area of international law. It reviews the unique challenges facing such application and demonstrates the contribution of behavioral findings to the understanding of lawmaking, the use of nudges, and states’ practices in the international arena.

In the sphere of lawmaking, the article first highlights the contribution of experimental game theory to understanding international customary law. It then analyzes the psychological mechanisms underpinning the advancement of treaty law through the use of deadlines, grandfather provisions, deferred implementation, and temporary arrangements. More generally, it provides insight into the processes through which international soft law evolves into hard law.

The article then argues that in the absence of a central legislative body or strong enforcement mechanisms, nudges (that is, low-cost, choice-preserving, behaviorally informed regulatory tools) can play a particularly important role in influencing the behavior of states and other entities. The article describes the current use of nudges, such as opt-in and opt-out arrangements in multilateral treaties, goal settings, and international rankings—and calls for further employment of such means.

Finally, the article suggests that the extent to which states comply with international norms may be explained by phenomena such as loss aversion and the identifiability effect; and that further insight into states’ (non)compliance may be gained from the emerging research in behavioral ethics…(More)”

And Yet They Thrive!—Regaining the Relevance of a Transparency System

Curated on February 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Pontus Hedlin in Development Policy Review: “Over the past decade, a host of donor organizations implemented transparency systems to make international development aid more transparent to the public. These initiatives have met with little public interest, but their proliferation and development show no sign of diminishing. This article shows how internal importance to the political system, fueled by formal rankings and the exhibition of transparency systems as a flagship initiative, can replace relevance to the public as a driving force for sustainable development. The article concludes by discussing the possibility of a future development where transparency systems finally do connect with user groups, such as citizens of both donor and recipient countries, and gain a relevance even beyond original intentions….(More)”.

Data As Infrastructure

Curated on February 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Peter Kawalek and Ali Bayat: “In the 21st Century, data is infrastructure. This is because the managed and built environments increasingly depend upon data in real-time. Moreover, the sources of this data are potentially multiple, not necessarily arising from within the control of traditional institutions, and yet this data can be complex in form. It follows from this that data is a critical component and needs to be understood as a key part of 21st infrastructure but that it presents new challenges to those institutions concerned with the safe and effective management of infrastructure.

It is now widely accepted that the digitization of the economy has taken root in a way that means it is not confined to one sector. All sectors are affected in some common ways. Brynjolfsson and McAfee are among those who have described this. The economic drivers behind digitization are successfully isolated and described by Goldfarb & Tucker , and there are important contributions to understanding given by economists including Levin and Nordhaus . It is proportionate to describe the economic and social ramifications within the frame of ‘Creative Destruction’, originally described by Schumpeter in 19425 . In this light, the importance of data can be expected to grow across most or all industry sectors. Its effective management will become ever more critical to the economy and to society more widely….(More)”

Views on Open Data Business from Software Development Companies

Curated on February 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Antti Herala, Jussi Kasurinen, and Erno Vanhala in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research: “The main concept of open data and its application is simple; access to the publicly-funded data provides greater returns from the public investment and can generate wealth through the downstream use of outputs, such as traffic information or weather forecast services. However, even though open data and data sharing as concepts are forty years old with the open data initiative reaching ten, the practical actions and applications have tended to stay on the superficial level, and significant progress or success stories are hard to find. The current trend is that the governments and municipalities are opening their data, but the impact and usefulness of raw open data repositories to citizens – and even to businesses – can be questioned Besides the governments, a handful of private organizations are opening their data in an attempt to unlock the economic value of open data, but even they have difficulties finding innovative usage, let alone generate additional profit.

In a previous study it was found that companies are interested in open data and that this mindset spans over different industries, from both publicly available data to the private business-to-business data access. Open data is not only a resource for software companies, but also for traditional engineering industries and even for small, nonfranchised local markets and shops. In our previous study, it was established that there is evidence on recognizing the applicability of open data, and opening the data to the clients by private organizations leads to business opportunities, creating new value.

However, while there is interest towards open data in a wide variety of businesses, the question still remains whether or not open data is actually used to generate income or are there some other sharing methods in use that are more efficient and more profitable.

For this study, four research questions were formulated. The first three are concentrating on the usage of open data as well as the interest towards opening or sharing data and the fourth research question revolves around the different types of openness:

How do new clients express interest towards open data?
What kind of open data-based solutions is the existing clientele expecting?
How does the product portfolio of a software company respond to open data?
What are the current trends of open initiatives?…(More)”.

How to Beat Science and Influence People: Policy Makers and Propaganda in Epistemic Networks

Curated on February 4, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by James Owen Weatherall, Cailin O’Connor, and Justin Bruner: “In their recent book Merchants of Doubt [New York:Bloomsbury 2010], Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway describe the “tobacco strategy”, which was used by the tobacco industry to influence policy makers regarding the health risks of tobacco products. The strategy involved two parts, consisting of (1) promoting and sharing independent research supporting the industry’s preferred position and (2) funding additional research, but selectively publishing the results.

We introduce a model of the Tobacco Strategy, and use it to argue that both prongs of the strategy can be extremely effective–even when policy makers rationally update on all evidence available to them. As we elaborate, this model helps illustrate the conditions under which the Tobacco Strategy is particularly successful. In addition, we show how journalists engaged in “fair” reporting can inadvertently mimic the effects of industry on public belief….(More)”.