Paper by Ana Colovic, Annalisa Caloffi, and Federica Rossi: “We discuss how public administrations have used crowdsourcing to find solutions to specific problems posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to what extent crowdsourcing has been instrumental in promoting open innovation and service co-creation. We propose a conceptual typology of crowdsourcing challenges based on the degree of their openness and collaboration with the crowd that they establish. Using empirical evidence collected in 2020 and 2021, we examine the extent to which these types have been used in practice. We discuss each type of crowdsourcing challenge identified and draw implications for public policy…(More)”.
“Medical Matchmaking” provides personalized insights
Matthew Hempstead at Springwise: “Humanity is a collection of unique individuals who represent a complex mixture of medical realities. Yet traditional medicine is based on a ‘law of averages’ – treating patients based on generalisations about the population as a whole. This law of averages can be misleading, and in a world where the average American spends 52 hours looking for health information online each year, generalisations create misunderstandings. Information provided by ‘Dr. Google’ or Facebook is inadequate and doesn’t account for the specific characteristics of each individual.
Israeli startup Alike has come up with a novel multidisciplinary solution to this problem – using health data and machine learning to match people who are alike on a holistic level. The AI’s matchmaking takes into account considerations such as co-morbidities, lifestyle factors, age, and gender.
Patients are then put into contact with an anonymised community of ‘Alikes’ – people who share their exact clinical journey, lifestyle, and interests. Members of this community can share or receive relevant and personalised insights that help them to better manage their conditions.
The new technology is possible due to regulatory changes that make it possible for everyone to gain instant electronic access to their personal health records. The app allows users to automatically create a health profile through a direct connection with their health provider.
Given the sensitive nature of medical information, Alike has put in place stringent privacy controls. The data shared on the app is completely de-identified, which means all personal identifiers are removed. Every user is verified by their healthcare provider, and further measures including data encryption and data fuzzing are employed. This means that patients can benefit from the insights of other patients while maintaining their privacy…(More)”.
The New Rules of Data Privacy
Essay by Hossein Rahnama and Alex “Sandy” Pentland: “The data harvested from our personal devices, along with our trail of electronic transactions and data from other sources, now provides the foundation for some of the world’s largest companies. Personal data also the wellspring for millions of small businesses and countless startups, which turn it into customer insights, market predictions, and personalized digital services. For the past two decades, the commercial use of personal data has grown in wild-west fashion. But now, because of consumer mistrust, government action, and competition for customers, those days are quickly coming to an end.
For most of its existence, the data economy was structured around a “digital curtain” designed to obscure the industry’s practices from lawmakers and the public. Data was considered company property and a proprietary secret, even though the data originated from customers’ private behavior. That curtain has since been lifted and a convergence of consumer, government, and market forces are now giving users more control over the data they generate. Instead of serving as a resource that can be freely harvested, countries in every region of the world have begun to treat personal data as an asset owned by individuals and held in trust by firms.
This will be a far better organizing principle for the data economy. Giving individuals more control has the potential to curtail the sector’s worst excesses while generating a new wave of customer-driven innovation, as customers begin to express what sort of personalization and opportunity they want their data to enable. And while Adtech firms in particular will be hardest hit, any firm with substantial troves of customer data will have to make sweeping changes to its practices, particularly large firms such as financial institutions, healthcare firms, utilities, and major manufacturers and retailers.
Leading firms are already adapting to the new reality as it unfolds. The key to this transition — based upon our research on data and trust, and our experience working on this issue with a wide variety of firms — is for companies to reorganize their data operations around the new fundamental rules of consent, insight, and flow…(More)”.
Toward A Periodic Table of Open Data in Cities
Essay by Andrew Zahuranec, Adrienne Schmoeker, Hannah Chafetz and Stefaan G Verhulst: “In 2016, The GovLab studied the impact of open data in countries around the world. Through a series of case studies examining the value of open data across sectors, regions, and types of impact, we developed a framework for understanding the factors and variables that enable or complicate the success of open data initiatives. We called this framework the Periodic Table of Open Impact Factors.
Over the years, this tool has attracted substantial interest from data practitioners around the world. However, given the countless developments since 2016, we knew it needed to be updated and made relevant to our current work on urban innovation and the Third Wave of Open Data.
Last month, the Open Data Policy Lab held a collaborative discussion with our City Incubator participants and Council of Mentors. In a workshop setting with structured brainstorming sessions, we introduced the periodic table to participants and asked how this framework could be applied to city governments. We knew that city government often have fewer resources than other levels of government yet benefit from a potentially stronger connection to constituents being served. How might this Periodic Table of Open Data Elements be different at a city government level? We gathered participant and mentor feedback and worked to revise the table.
Today, to celebrate NYC Open Data Week 2022, the celebration of open data in New York, we are happy to release this refined model with a distinctive focus on developing open data strategies within cities. The Open Data Policy Lab is happy to present the Periodic Table of Open Data in Cities.
Separated into five categories — Problem and Demand Definition, Capacity and Culture, Governance and Standards, Partnerships, and Risks and Ethical Pitfalls — this table provides a summary of some of the major issues that open data practitioners can think about as they develop strategies for release and use of open data in the communities they serve. We sought to specifically incorporate the needs of city incubators (as determined by our workshop), but the table can be relevant to a variety of stakeholders.
While descriptions for each of these elements are included below, the Periodic Table of Open Data Elements in Cities is an iterative framework and new elements will be perennially added or adjusted in accordance with emerging practices…(More)”.
The #Data4Covid19 Review
Press Release: “The Governance Lab (The GovLab), an action research center at New York University Tandon School of Engineering, with the support of the Knight Foundation, today announced the launch of The #Data4Covid19 Review. Through this initiative, The GovLab will evaluate how select countries used data to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings will be used to identify lessons that can be applied to future data-driven crisis management.
The initiative launches within the context of the 2nd anniversary of the announcement that COVID-19 was a global pandemic and the resulting lockdown restrictions. Countries around the world have since undertaken varied approaches to minimizing the spread of the virus and managing the aftermath. Many of these efforts are driven by data. While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a global challenge, there have been few attempts to review and evaluate how data use played a role holistically in the global pandemic response.
The #Data4Covid19 Review aims to fill this gap in the current research by providing an assessment of how data was used during the different waves of the pandemic and guidance for the improvement of future data systems. The GovLab will develop case studies and compare a select group of countries from around the world, with the input and support of a distinguished advisory group of public health, technology, and human rights experts. These case studies will investigate how data use impacted COVID-19 responses. Outputs will include recommendations for decision makers looking to improve their capacity to use data in a responsible way for crisis management and an assessment framework that could be used when designing future data-driven crisis responses. By learning from our response to the pandemic, we can better understand how the use of data should be used in crisis management…(More)”.
Innovation and Data Use in Cities
OECD Report: “This report is a first-of-its-kind work to provide evidence on how cities’ investments in innovation and data use can pay off in powerful ways for residents. It offers analysis on the different ways local governments build capacity at the strategic and technical level, from organisational structure and strategy, to resource allocation and outcome evaluation. It shows that cities with higher public-sector innovation capacity and data use practices have higher levels of city and life satisfaction. Furthermore, when looking across key well-being dimensions from housing to environment, health and walkability, cities with higher innovation capacity and data use practices outperformed cities with lower capacity. The lessons in the report have been distilled into 10 recommendations to help local leaders boost their data use and innovation capacity to improve resident well-being…(More)”.
The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI
Book by Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie: “Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the modern world. It is ubiquitous—in our homes and offices, in the present and most certainly in the future. Today, we encounter AI as our distant ancestors once encountered fire. If we manage AI well, it will become a force for good, lighting the way to many transformative inventions. If we deploy it thoughtlessly, it will advance beyond our control. If we wield it for destruction, it will fan the flames of a new kind of war, one that holds democracy in the balance. As AI policy experts Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie show in The New Fire, few choices are more urgent—or more fascinating—than how we harness this technology and for what purpose.
The new fire has three sparks: data, algorithms, and computing power. These components fuel viral disinformation campaigns, new hacking tools, and military weapons that once seemed like science fiction. To autocrats, AI offers the prospect of centralized control at home and asymmetric advantages in combat. It is easy to assume that democracies, bound by ethical constraints and disjointed in their approach, will be unable to keep up. But such a dystopia is hardly preordained. Combining an incisive understanding of technology with shrewd geopolitical analysis, Buchanan and Imbrie show how AI can work for democracy. With the right approach, technology need not favor tyranny…(More)”.
Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values
Introduction to Special Issue of the Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ): “…Artificial intelligence has fast become part of everyday life, and we wanted to understand how it fits into democratic values. It was important for us to ask how we can ensure that AI and digital policies will promote broad social inclusion, which relies on fundamental rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law. There seems to be no shortage of principles and concepts that support the fair and responsible use of AI systems, yet it’s difficult to determine how to efficiently manage or deploy those systems today.
Merve Hickok and Marc Rotenberg, two TPQ Advisory Board members, wrote the lead article for this issue. In a world where data means power, vast amounts of data are collected every day by both private companies and government agencies, which then use this data to fuel complex systems for automated decision-making now broadly described as “Artificial Intelligence.” Activities managed with these AI systems range from policing to military, to access to public services and resources such as benefits, education, and employment. The expected benefits from having national talent, capacity, and capabilities to develop and deploy these systems also drive a lot of national governments to prioritize AI and digital policies. A crucial question for policymakers is how to reap the benefits while reducing the negative impacts of these sociotechnical systems on society.
Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, has written an article entitled “Ethics of AI and Democracy: UNESCO’s Recommendation’s Insights”. In her article, she discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) can affect democracy. The article discusses the ways in which Artificial Intelligence is affecting democratic processes, democratic values, and the political and social behavior of citizens. The article notes that the use of artificial intelligence, and its potential abuse by some government entities, as well as by big private corporations, poses a serious threat to rights-based democratic institutions, processes, and norms. UNESCO announced a remarkable consensus agreement among 193 member states creating the first-ever global standard on the ethics of AI that could serve as a blueprint for national AI legislation and a global AI ethics benchmark.
Paul Nemitz, Principal Adviser on Justice Policy at the EU Commission, addresses the question of what drives democracy. In his view, technology has undoubtedly shaped democracy. However, technology as well as legal rules regarding technology have shaped and have been shaped by democracy. This is why he says it is essential to develop and use technology according to democratic principles. He writes that there are libertarians today who purposefully design technological systems in such a way that challenges democratic control. It is, however, clear that there is enough counterpower and engagement, at least in Europe, to keep democracy functioning, as long as we work together to create rules that are sensible for democracy’s future and confirm democracy’s supremacy over technology and business interests.
Research associate at the University of Oxford and Professor at European University Cyprus, Paul Timmers, writes about how AI challenges sovereignty and democracy. AI is wonderful. AI is scary. AI is the path to paradise. AI is the path to hell. What do we make of these contradictory images when, in a world of AI, we seek to both protect sovereignty and respect democratic values? Neither a techno-utopian nor a dystopian view of AI is helpful. The direction of travel must be global guidance and national or regional AI law that stresses end-to-end accountability and AI transparency, while recognizing practical and fundamental limits.
Tania Sourdin, Dean of Newcastle Law School, Australia, asks: what if judges were replaced by AI? She believes that although AI will increasingly be used to support judges when making decisions in most jurisdictions, there will also be attempts over the next decade to totally replace judges with AI. Increasingly, we are seeing a shift towards Judge AI, and to a certain extent we are seeing shifts towards supporting Judge AI, which raises concerns related to democratic values, structures, and what judicial independence means. The reason for this may be partly due to the systems used being set up to support a legal interpretation that fails to allow for a nuanced and contextual view of the law.
Pam Dixon, Executive Director of the World Privacy Forum, writes about biometric technologies. She says that biometric technologies encompass many types, or modalities, of biometrics today, such as face recognition, iris recognition, fingerprint recognition, and DNA recognition, both separately and in combination. A growing body of law and regulations seeks to mitigate the risks associated with biometric technologies as they are increasingly understood as a technology of concern based on scientific data.
We invite you to learn more about how our world is changing. As a way to honor this milestone, we have assembled a list of articles from around the world from some of the best experts in their field. This issue would not be possible without the assistance of many people. In addition to the contributing authors, there were many other individuals who contributed greatly. TPQ’s team is proud to present you with this edition….(More)” (Full list)”
Web3 and the Trap of ‘For Good’
Article by By Scott Smith & Lina Srivastava : “There are three linked challenges baked into Web3 that any proponent of positive social impact must solve.
1. Decentralized tech doesn’t equal distributed power. Web3 has become synonymous with the decentralized web, and one of the selling points of Web3 technologies is decentralization or shared ownership of web infrastructure. But in reality, ownership is too often centralized by and for those with resources already, the wealthy (even if only coin-wealthy) and corporations.
As the example of NFT marketplace OpenSea demonstrates, risks are too easily distributed onto the users, even as the gains remain very much centralized for platform owners and a small minority of participants. Even Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin has issued warnings about power concentration in Web3 token-based economies, saying crypto “whales” can have too much power in these economies. Systems become inherently extractive unless ownership is shared and distributed by a majority, particularly by those who are traditionally most vulnerable to exploitation.
For this reason, equitable power structures must be proactively designed in Web3 systems.
2. A significant percentage of existing power holders are already building their Web3 business models on exploitation and extraction. At present, these business models mine energy and other resources to the detriment of our climate and environment and of energy-poor communities, in some cases actively resuscitating wasteful or harmful power projects. They do so without addressing these concerns in their core business model (or even by creating offsets, a less desirable alternative but still better than nothing).
These models are meant to avoid accountability to platform users or vulnerable communities in either economic or environmental terms. But they nevertheless ask for our trust?
3. Building community trust takes more than decentralization. Those who are building over distributed technologies often claim it as a solution to a trust deficit, that “trust” is inherent to the systems. Except that it isn’t…(More)”
Scientific Foundations of Digital Governance and Transformation
Book by Yannis Charalabidis, Leif Skiftenes, Flak Gabriela, and Viale Pereira: “This book provides the latest research advancements and findings for the scientific systematization of knowledge regarding digital governance and transformation, such as core concepts, foundational principles, theories, methodologies, architectures, assessment frameworks and future directions. It brings forward the ingredients of this new domain, proposing its needed formal and systematic tools, exploring its relation with neighbouring scientific domains and finally prescribing the next steps for laying the foundations of a new science.The book is structured into three main areas. The first section focuses on contributions towards the purpose, ingredients and structure of the scientific foundations of digital transformation in the public sector. The second looks at the identification and description of domain’s scientific problems with a view to stabilizing research products, assessment methods and tools in a reusable, extendable and sustainable manner. The third envisions a pathway for future research to tackle broader governance problems via the applications of information and communication technologies in combination with innovative approaches from neighbouring scientific domains.
Contributing to the analysis of the scientific perspectives of digital governance and digital transformation, this book will be an indispensable tool for students, researchers and practitioners interested in digital governance, digital transformation, information systems, as well as ICT industry experts and policymakers charged with the design, deployment and implementation of public sector information systems….(More)”.