Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes


OECD Report: “Evaluations of representative deliberative processes do not happen regularly, not least due to the lack of specific guidance for their evaluation. To respond to this need, together with an expert advisory group, the OECD has developed Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes. They aim to encourage public authorities, organisers, and evaluators to conduct more comprehensive, objective, and comparable evaluations.

These evaluation guidelines establish minimum standards and criteria for the evaluation of representative deliberative processes as a foundation on which more comprehensive evaluations can be built by adding additional criteria according to specific contexts and needs.

The guidelines suggest that independent evaluations are the most comprehensive and reliable way of evaluating a deliberative process.

For smaller and shorter deliberative processes, evaluation in the form of self-reporting by members and/or organisers of a deliberative process can also contribute to the learning process…(More)”.

The Global State of Democracy Report 2021


IDEA Report: “The world is becoming more authoritarian as non-democratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many  democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a “new normal” of Covid-19 restrictions. For the fifth consecutive year, the number of countries moving in an authoritarian direction exceeds the number of countries moving in a democratic direction. In fact, the number moving in the direction of authoritarianism is three times the number moving towards democracy. …

Yet, democracy is resilient.

Protest and civic action are alive and well.  Pro-democracy movements have braved repression around the world, and global social movements for tackling climate change and fighting racial inequalities have emerged. In spite of restrictions, more than three-quarters of countries have experienced protests during the pandemic.  

Many democracies have proved resilient to the pandemic, introducing or expanding democratic innovations and adapting their practices and institutions in record time. Countries around the world rapidly activated Special Voting Arrangements to allow citizens to continue to hold elections in exceedingly difficult conditions….(More)”

Creating and governing social value from data


Paper by Diane Coyle and Stephanie Diepeveen: “Data is increasingly recognised as an important economic resource for innovation and growth, but its innate characteristics mean market-based valuations inadequately account for the impact of its use on social welfare. This paper extends the literature on the value of data by providing a framework that takes into account its non-rival nature and integrates its inherent positive and negative externalities. Positive externalities consist of the scope for combining different data sets or enabling innovative uses of existing data, while negative externalities include potential privacy loss. We propose a framework integrating these and explore the policy trade-offs shaping net social welfare through a case study of geospatial data and the transport sector in the UK, where insufficient recognition of the trade-offs has contributed to suboptimal policy outcomes. We conclude by proposing methods for empirical approaches to social data valuation, essential evidence for decisions regarding the policy trade-offs . This article therefore lays important groundwork for novel approaches to the measurement of the net social welfare contribution of data, and hence illuminating opportunities for greater and more equitable creation of value from data in our societies….(More)”

Surveillance, Companionship, and Entertainment: The Ancient History of Intelligent Machines


Essay by E.R. Truitt: “Robots have histories that extend far back into the past. Artificial servants, autonomous killing machines, surveillance systems, and sex robots all find expression from the human imagination in works and contexts beyond Ovid (43 BCE to 17 CE) and the story of Pygmalion in cultures across Eurasia and North Africa. This long history of our human-machine relationships also reminds us that our aspirations, fears, and fantasies about emergent technologies are not new, even as the circumstances in which they appear differ widely. Situating these objects, and the desires that create them, within deeper and broader contexts of time and space reveals continuities and divergences that, in turn, provide opportunities to critique and question contemporary ideas and desires about robots and artificial intelligence (AI).

As early as 3,000 years ago we encounter interest in intelligent machines and AI that perform different servile functions. In the works of Homer (c. eighth century BCE) we find Hephaestus, the Greek god of smithing and craft, using automatic bellows to execute simple, repetitive labor. Golden handmaidens, endowed with characteristics of movement, perception, judgment, and speech, assist him in his work. In his “Odyssey,” Homer recounts how the ships of the Phaeacians perfectly obey their human captains, detecting and avoiding obstacles or threats, and moving “at the speed of thought.” Several centuries later, around 400 BCE, we meet Talos, the giant bronze sentry, created by Hephaestus, that patrolled the shores of Crete. These examples from the ancient world all have in common their subservient role; they exist to serve the desires of other, more powerful beings — either gods or humans — and even if they have sentience, they lack autonomy. Thousands of years before Karel Čapek introduced the term “robot” to refer to artificial slaves, we find them in Homer….(More)”.

Conceptualizing AI literacy: An exploratory review


Paper by Davy Tsz KitNg, Jac Ka LokLeung, Samuel K.W.Chu, and Maggie QiaoShen: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) has spread across industries (e.g., business, science, art, education) to enhance user experience, improve work efficiency, and create many future job opportunities. However, public understanding of AI technologies and how to define AI literacy is under-explored. This vision poses upcoming challenges for our next generation to learn about AI. On this note, an exploratory review was conducted to conceptualize the newly emerging concept “AI literacy”, in search for a sound theoretical foundation to define, teach and evaluate AI literacy. Grounded in literature on 30 existing peer-reviewed articles, this review proposed four aspects (i.e., know and understand, use, evaluate, and ethical issues) for fostering AI literacy based on the adaptation of classic literacies. This study sheds light on the consolidated definition, teaching, and ethical concerns on AI literacy, establishing the groundwork for future research such as competency development and assessment criteria on AI literacy….(More)”.

Perspectives on Platform Regulation


Open Access Book edited by Judit Bayer, Bernd Holznage, Päivi Korpisaari and Lorna Woods: “Concepts and Models of Social Media GovernanceOnline social media platforms set the agenda and structure for public and private communication in our age. Their influence and power is beyond any traditional media empire. Their legal regulation is a pressing challenge, but currently, they are mainly governed by economic pressures. There are now diverse legislative attempts to regulate platforms in various parts of the world. The European Union and most of its Member States have historically relied on soft law, but are now looking to introduce regulation.

Leading researchers of the field analyse the hard questions and the responses given by various states. The book offers legislative solutions from various parts of the world, compares regulatory concepts and assesses the use of algorithms….(More)”.

Decolonizing Innovation


Essay by Tony Roberts and Andrea Jimenez Cisneros: “In order to decolonize global innovation thinking and practice, we look instead to indigenous worldviews such as Ubuntu in Southern Africa, Swaraj in South Asia, and Buen Vivir in South America. Together they demonstrate that a radically different kind of innovation is possible.

The fate of Kenya’s Silicon Savannah should serve as a cautionary tale about exporting Western models to the Global South.

The fate of Kenya’s Silicon Savannah should serve as a cautionary tale about exporting Western models to the Global South. The idea of an African Silicon Valley emerged around 2011 amidst the digital technology ecosystem developing in Nairobi. The success of Nairobi’s first innovation hub inspired many imitators and drove ambitious plans by the government to build a new innovation district in the city. The term “Silicon Savannah” captured these aspirations and featured in a series of blog posts, white papers, and consultancy reports. Advocates argued that Nairobi could leapfrog other innovation centers due to lower entry barriers and cost advantages.

These promises caught the attention of many tech entrepreneurs and policymakers—including President Barack Obama, who cohosted the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya. As part of its Silicon Savannah vision, the Kenyan government proposed to build a “smart city” called Konza Technopolis in the south of Nairobi. This government-led initiative—designed with McKinsey consultants—was supposed to help turn Kenya into a “middle-income country providing a high quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030.” The city was proposed to attract investors, create jobs at a mass scale, and use technology to manage the city effectively and efficiently. Its website identified Konza as the place where “Africa’s silicon savannah begins.” Years later, the dream remains unfulfilled. As Kenyan writer Carey Baraka’s has recently detailed, the plan has only reinforced existing inequalities as it caters mainly to international multinationals and the country’s wealthy elite.

One of the most important lessons to be derived from studying such efforts to import foreign technologies and innovation models is that they inevitably come with ideological baggage. Silicon Valley is not just a theoretical model for economic growth: it represents a whole way of life, carrying with it all kinds of implications for how people think about themselves, each other, and their place in the world. Venture capital pitching sessions prize what is most monetizable, what stands to deliver the greatest return on investment, and what offers the earliest exit opportunities. Breznitz is right to criticize this way of thinking, but similar worries arise about his own examples, which say little about environmental sustainability or maintaining the integrity of local communities. Neoliberal modes of private capital accumulation are not value neutral, and we must be sensitive to the way innovation models are situated in uneven structures of power, discourse, and resource distribution…(More)”.

Randomistas vs. Contestistas


Excerpt by By Beth Simone Noveck: “Social scientists who either run experiments or conduct systematic reviews tend to be fervent proponents of the value of RCTs. But that evidentiary hierarchy—what some people call the “RCT industrial complex”—may actually lead us to discount workable solutions just because there is no accompanying RCT.

A trawl of the solution space shows that successful interventions developed by entrepreneurs in business, philanthropy, civil society, social enterprise, or business schools who promote and study open innovation, often by developing and designing competitions to source ideas, often come from more varied places. Uncovering these exciting social innovations lays bare the limitations of confining a definition of what works only to RCTs.

Many more entrepreneurial and innovative solutions are simply not tested with an RCT and are not the subject of academic study. As one public official said to me, you cannot saddle an entrepreneur with having to do a randomized controlled trial (RCT), which they do not have the time or know-how to do. They are busy helping real people, and we have to allow them “to get on with it.”

For example, MIT Solve, which describes itself as a marketplace for socially impactful innovation designed to identify lasting solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. It catalogs hundreds of innovations in use around the world, like Faircap, a chemical-free water filter used in Mozambique, or WheeLog!, an application that enables individuals and local governments to share accessibility information in Tokyo.

Research funding is also too limited (and too slow) for RCTs to assess every innovation in every domain. Many effective innovators do not have the time, resources, or know-how to partner with academic researchers to conduct a study, or they evaluate projects by some other means.

There are also significant limitations to RCTs. For a start, systematic evidence reviews are quite slow, frequently taking upward of two years, and despite published standards for review, there is a lack of transparency. Faster approaches are important. In addition, many solutions that have been tested with an RCT clearly do not work. Interestingly, the first RCT in an area tends to produce an inflated effect size….(More)”.

Data and Society: A Critical Introduction


Book by Anne Beaulieu and Sabina Leonelli: “Data and Society: A Critical Introduction investigates the growing importance of data as a technological, social, economic and scientific resource. It explains how data practices have come to underpin all aspects of human life and explores what this means for those directly involved in handling data. The book

  • fosters informed debate over the role of data in contemporary society
  • explains the significance of data as evidence beyond the “Big Data” hype
  • spans the technical, sociological, philosophical and ethical dimensions of data
  • provides guidance on how to use data responsibly
  • includes data stories that provide concrete cases and discussion questions.

Grounded in examples spanning genetics, sport and digital innovation, this book fosters insight into the deep interrelations between technical, social and ethical aspects of data work…(More)”.

Collective innovation is key to the lasting successes of democracies


Article by Kent Walker and Jared Cohen: “Democracies across the world have been through turbulent times in recent years, as polarization and gridlock have posed significant challenges to progress. The initial spread of COVID-19 spurred chaos at the global level, and governments scrambled to respond. With uncertainty and skepticism at an all-time high, few of us would have guessed a year ago that 66 percent of Americans would have received at least one vaccine dose by now. So what made that possible?

It turns out democracies, unlike their geopolitical competitors, have a secret weapon: collective innovation. The concept of collective innovation draws on democratic values of openness and pluralism. Free expression and free association allow for cooperation and scientific inquiry. Freedom to fail leaves room for risk-taking, while institutional checks and balances protect from state overreach.

Vaccine development and distribution offers a powerful case study. Within days of the coronavirus being first sequenced by Chinese researchers, research centers across the world had exchanged viral genome data through international data-sharing initiatives. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 75 percent of COVID-19 research published after the outbreak relied on open data. In the United States and Europe, in universities and companies, scientists drew on open information, shared research, and debated alternative approaches to develop powerful vaccines in record-setting time.

Democracies’ self- and co-regulatory frameworks have played a critical role in advancing scientific and technological progress, leading to robust capital markets, talent-attracting immigration policies, world-class research institutions, and dynamic manufacturing sectors. The resulting world-leading productivity underpins democracies’ geopolitical influence….(More)”.