A New National Purpose: Harnessing Data for Health

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the Tony Blair Institute: “We are at a pivotal moment where the convergence of large health and biomedical data sets, artificial intelligence and advances in biotechnology is set to revolutionise health care, drive economic growth and improve the lives of citizens. And the UK has strengths in all three areas. The immense potential of the UK’s health-data assets, from the NHS to biobanks and genomics initiatives, can unlock new diagnostics and treatments, deliver better and more personalised care, prevent disease and ultimately help people live longer, healthier lives.

However, realising this potential is not without its challenges. The complex and fragmented nature of the current health-data landscape, coupled with legitimate concerns around privacy and public trust, has made for slow progress. The UK has had a tendency to provide short-term funding across multiple initiatives, which has led to an array of individual projects – many of which have struggled to achieve long-term sustainability and deliver tangible benefits to patients.

To overcome these challenges, it will be necessary to be bold and imaginative. We must look for ways to leverage the unique strengths of the NHS, such as its nationwide reach and cradle-to-grave data coverage, to create a health-data ecosystem that is much more than the sum of its many parts. This will require us to think differently about how we collect, manage and utilise health data, and to create new partnerships and models of collaboration that break down traditional silos and barriers. It will mean treating data as a key health resource and managing it accordingly.

One model to do this is the proposed sovereign National Data Trust (NDT) – an endeavour to streamline access to and curation of the UK’s valuable health-data assets…(More)”.

Data governance for the ecological transition: An infrastructure perspective

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Charlotte Ducuing: “This article uses infrastructure studies to provide a critical analysis of the European Union’s (EU) ambition to regulate data for the ecological transition. The EU’s regulatory project implicitly qualifies data as an infrastructure for a better economy and society. However, current EU law does not draw all the logical consequences derived from this qualification of data as infrastructure, which is one main reason why EU data legislation for the ecological transition may not deliver on its high political expectations. The ecological transition does not play a significant normative role in EU data legislation and is largely overlooked in the data governance literature. By drawing inferences from the qualification of data as an infrastructure more consistently, the article opens avenues for data governance that centre the ecological transition as a normative goal…(More)”.

Empowered Mini-Publics: A Shortcut or Democratically Legitimate?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Shao Ming Lee: “Contemporary mini-publics involve randomly selected citizens deliberating and eventually tackling thorny issues. Yet, the usage of mini-publics in creating public policy has come under criticism, of which a more persuasive  strand  is  elucidated  by  eminent  philosopher  Cristina  Lafont,  who  argues  that  mini-publics  with  binding  decision-making  powers  (or  ‘empowered  mini-publics’)  are  an  undemocratic  ‘shortcut’  and  deliberative democrats thus cannot use empowered mini-publics for shaping public policies. This paper aims to serve as a nuanced defense of empowered mini-publics against Lafont’s claims. I argue against her  claims  by  explicating  how  participants  of  an  empowered  mini-public  remain  ordinary,  accountable,  and therefore connected to the broader public in a democratically legitimate manner. I further critique Lafont’s own proposals for non-empowered mini-publics and judicial review as failing to satisfy her own criteria for democratic legitimacy in a self-defeating manner and relying on a double standard. In doing so, I show how empowered mini-publics are not only democratic but can thus serve to expand democratic deliberation—a goal Lafont shares but relegates to non-empowered mini-publics…(More)”.

The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Shannon Vallor: “For many, technology offers hope for the future—that promise of shared human flourishing and liberation that always seems to elude our species. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies spark this hope in a particular way. They promise a future in which human limits and frailties are finally overcome—not by us, but by our machines.

Yet rather than open new futures, today’s powerful AI technologies reproduce the past. Forged from oceans of our data into immensely powerful but flawed mirrors, they reflect the same errors, biases, and failures of wisdom that we strive to escape. Our new digital mirrors point backward. They show only where the data say that we have already been, never where we might venture together for the first time.

To meet today’s grave challenges to our species and our planet, we will need something new from AI, and from ourselves.

Shannon Vallor makes a wide-ranging, prophetic, and philosophical case for what AI could be: a way to reclaim our human potential for moral and intellectual growth, rather than lose ourselves in mirrors of the past. Rejecting prophecies of doom, she encourages us to pursue technology that helps us recover our sense of the possible, and with it the confidence and courage to repair a broken world. Vallor calls us to rethink what AI is and can be, and what we want to be with it…(More)”.

What Mission-Driven Government Means

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Mariana Mazzucato & Rainer Kattel: “The COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and wars have alerted governments to the realities of what it takes to tackle massive crises. In extraordinary times, policymakers often rediscover their capacity for bold decision-making. The rapid speed of COVID-19 vaccine development and deployment was a case in point.

But preparing for other challenges requires more sustained efforts in “mission-driven government.” Recalling the successful language and strategies of the Cold War-era moonshot, governments around the world are experimenting with ambitious policy programs and public-private partnerships in pursuit of specific social, economic, and environmental goals. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Labour Party’s five-mission campaign platform has kicked off a vibrant debate about whether and how to create a “mission economy.”

Mission-driven government is not about achieving doctrinal adherence to some original set of ideas; it is about identifying the essential components of missions and accepting that different countries might need different approaches. As matters stand, the emerging landscape of public missions is characterized by a re-labeling or repurposing of existing institutions and policies, with more stuttering starts than rapid takeoffs. But that is okay. We should not expect a radical change in policymaking strategies to happen overnight, or even over one electoral cycle.

Particularly in liberal democracies, ambitious change requires engagement across a wide range of constituencies to secure public buy-in, and to ensure that the benefits will be widely shared. The paradox at the heart of mission-driven government is that it pursues ambitious, clearly articulated policy goals through myriad policies and programs based on experimentation.

This embrace of experimentation is what separates today’s missions from the missions of the moonshot era (though it does echo the Roosevelt administration’s experimental approach during the 1930s New Deal). Major societal challenges, such as the urgent need to create more equitable and sustainable food systems, cannot be tackled the same way as a moon landing. Such systems consist of multiple technological dimensions (in the case of food, these include everything from energy to waste management), and involve widespread and often disconnected agents and an array of cultural norms, values, and habits…(More)”.

First EU rulebook to protect media independence and pluralism enters into force

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Press Release: “Today, the European Media Freedom Act, a new set of unprecedented rules to protect media independence and pluralism, enters into force.

This new legislation provides safeguards against political interference in editorial decisions and against surveillance of journalists. The Act guarantees that media can operate more easily in the internal market and online. Additionally, the regulation also aims to secure the independence and stable funding of public service media, as well as the transparency of both media ownership and allocation of state advertising.

Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, said:

 “For the first time ever, the EU has a law to protect media freedom. The EU recognises that journalists play an essential role for democracy and should be protected. I call on Member States to implement the new rules as soon as possible.”

Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, added:

“Media companies play a vital role in our democracies but are confronted with falling revenues, threats to media freedom and pluralism and a patchwork of different national rules. Thanks to the European Media Freedom Act, media companies will enjoy common safeguards at EU level to guarantee a plurality of voices and be able to better benefit from the opportunities of operating in our single market without any interference, be it private or public.”

Proposed by the Commission in September 2022, this Regulation puts in place several protections for the right to media plurality becoming applicable within 6 months. More details on the timeline for its application are available in this infographic. ..(More)”.

Potential competition impacts from the data asymmetry between Big Tech firms and firms in financial services

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the UK Financial Conduct Authority: “Big Tech firms in the UK and around the world have been, and continue to be, under active scrutiny by competition and regulatory authorities. This is because some of these large technology firms may have both the ability and the incentive to shape digital markets by protecting existing market power and extending it into new markets.
Concentration in some digital markets, and Big Tech firms’ key role, has been widely discussed, including in our DP22/05. This reflects both the characteristics of digital markets and the characteristics and behaviours of Big Tech firms themselves. Although Big Tech firms have different business models, common characteristics include their global scale and access to a large installed user base, rich data about their users, advanced data analytics and technology, influence over decision making and defaults, ecosystems of complementary products and strategic behaviours, including acquisition strategies.
Through our work, we aim to mitigate the risk of competition in retail financial markets evolving in a way that results in some Big Tech firms gaining entrenched market power, as seen in other sectors and jurisdictions, while enabling the potential competition benefits that come from Big Tech firms providing challenge to incumbent financial services firms…(More)”.

How do you accidentally run for President of Iceland?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Anna Andersen: “Content design can have real consequences — for democracy, even…

To run for President of Iceland, you need to be an Icelandic citizen, at least 35 years old, and have 1,500 endorsements.

For the first time in Icelandic history, this endorsement process is digital. Instead of collecting all their signatures on paper the old-fashioned way, candidates can now send people to https://island.is/forsetaframbod to submit their endorsement.

This change has, also for the first time in Icelandic history, given the nation a clear window into who is trying to run — and it’s a remarkably large number. To date, 82 people are collecting endorsements, including a comedian, a model, the world’s first double-arm transplant receiver, and my aunt Helga.

Many of these people are seriously vying for president (yep, my aunt Helga), some of them have undoubtedly signed up as a joke (nope, not the comedian), and at least 11 of them accidentally registered and had no idea that they were collecting endorsements for their candidacy.

“I’m definitely not about to run for president, this was just an accident,” one person told a reporter after having a good laugh about it.

“That’s hilarious!” another person said, thanking the reporter for letting them know that they were in the running.

As a content designer, I was intrigued. How could so many people accidentally start a campaign for President of Iceland?

It turns out, the answer largely has to do with content design.Presidential hopefuls were sending people a link to a page where they could be endorsed, but instead of endorsing the candidate, some people accidentally registered to be a candidate…(More)”.

‘Eugenics on steroids’: the toxic and contested legacy of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Andrew Anthony: “Two weeks ago it was quietly announced that the Future of Humanity Institute, the renowned multidisciplinary research centre in Oxford, no longer had a future. It shut down without warning on 16 April. Initially there was just a brief statement on its website stating it had closed and that its research may continue elsewhere within and outside the university.

The institute, which was dedicated to studying existential risks to humanity, was founded in 2005 by the Swedish-born philosopher Nick Bostrom and quickly made a name for itself beyond academic circles – particularly in Silicon Valley, where a number of tech billionaires sang its praises and provided financial support.

Bostrom is perhaps best known for his bestselling 2014 book Superintelligence, which warned of the existential dangers of artificial intelligence, but he also gained widespread recognition for his 2003 academic paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”. The paper argued that over time humans were likely to develop the ability to make simulations that were indistinguishable from reality, and if this was the case, it was possible that it had already happened and that we are the simulations….

Among the other ideas and movements that have emerged from the FHI are longtermism – the notion that humanity should prioritise the needs of the distant future because it theoretically contains hugely more lives than the present – and effective altruism (EA), a utilitarian approach to maximising global good.

These philosophies, which have intermarried, inspired something of a cult-like following,…

Torres has come to believe that the work of the FHI and its offshoots amounts to what they call a “noxious ideology” and “eugenics on steroids”. They refuse to see Bostrom’s 1996 comments as poorly worded juvenilia, but indicative of a brutal utilitarian view of humanity. Torres notes that six years after the email thread, Bostrom wrote a paper on existential risk that helped launch the longtermist movement, in which he discusses “dysgenic pressures” – dysgenic is the opposite of eugenic. Bostrom wrote:

“Currently it seems that there is a negative correlation in some places between intellectual achievement and fertility. If such selection were to operate over a long period of time, we might evolve into a less brainy but more fertile species, homo philoprogenitus (‘lover of many offspring’).”…(More)”.

The Open Data Maturity Ranking is shoddy – it badly needs to be re-thought

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Olesya Grabova: “Digitalising government is essential for Europe’s future innovation and economic growth and one of the keys to achieving this is open data – information that public entities gather, create, or fund, and it’s accessible to all to freely use.

This includes everything from public budget details to transport schedules. Open data’s benefits are vast — it fuels research, boosts innovation, and can even save lives in wartime through the creation of chatbots with information about bomb shelter locations. It’s estimated that its economic value will reach a total of EUR 194 billion for EU countries and the UK by 2030.

This is why correctly measuring European countries’ progress in open data is so important. And that’s why the European Commission developed the Open Data Maturity (ODM) ranking, which annually measures open data quality, policies, online portals, and impact across 35 European countries.

Alas, however, it doesn’t work as well as it should and this needs to be addressed.

A closer look at the report’s overall approach reveals the ranking hardly reflects countries’ real progress when it comes to open data. This flawed system, rather than guiding countries towards genuine improvement, risks misrepresenting their actual progress and misleads citizens about their country’s advancements, which further stalls opportunities for innovation.

Take Slovakia. It’s apparently the biggest climber,  leaping from 29th to 10th place in just over a year. One would expect that the country has made significant progress in making public sector information available and stimulating its reuse – one of the OMD assessment’s key elements.

A deeper examination reveals that this isn’t the case. Looking at the ODM’s methodology highlights where it falls short… and how it can be fixed…(More)”.