business

Democracy Needs a Reboot for the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Curated on November 9, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Katharine Dempsey at The Nation: “…A healthy modern democracy requires ordinary citizens to participate in public discussions about rapidly advancing technologies. We desperately need new policies, regulations, and safety nets for those displaced by machines. With computing power accelerating exponentially, the scale of AI’s significance is still not being fully internalized. The 2017 McKinsey Global Initiative report “A Future that Works” predicts that AI and advanced robotics could automate roughly half of all work globally by 2055, but, McKinsey notes, “this could happen up to 20 years earlier or later depending on the various factors, in addition to other wider economic conditions.”

Granted, the media are producing more articles focused on artificial intelligence, but too often these pieces veer into hysterics. Wired magazine labeled this year’s coverage “The Great Tech Panic of 2017.” We need less fear-mongering and more rational conversation. Dystopian narratives, while entertaining, can also be disorienting. Skynet from the Terminatormovies is not imminent. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t hazards ahead….

Increasingly, to thoughtfully discuss ethics, politics, or business, the general population needs to pay attention to AI. In 1989, Ursula Franklin, the distinguished German-Canadian experimental physicist, delivered a series of lectures titled “The Real World of Technology.” Franklin opened her lectures with an important observation: “The viability of technology, like democracy, depends in the end on the practice of justice and on the enforcements of limits to power.”

For Franklin, technology is not a neutral set of tools; it can’t be divorced from society or values. Franklin further warned that “prescriptive technologies”—ones that isolate tasks, such as factory-style work—find their way into our social infrastructures and create modes of compliance and orthodoxy. These technologies facilitate top-down control….(More)”.

How Americans Perceive Government in 2017

Curated on November 8, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Gallup: “Overall, Americans’ views of government remain negative. Most U.S. adults are dissatisfied with how the executive and legislative branches are doing their jobs, and majorities hold unfavorable views of both major political parties. Even Republicans rate Congress negatively, despite their party being in control of both chambers.

Americans’ frustration with government is focused on Washington, D.C. This is seen in trust and approval ratings they give to the executive and legislative branches — especially Congress. U.S. adults maintain higher levels of trust in the judicial branch as well as state and local government.
Barely a quarter of Americans, 28%, currently say they are satisfied with the way the nation is being governed. This is below the average of 38% found in the 22 times Gallup has asked this question since 1971 but still above the low point of 18%, recorded during the federal government shutdown in October 2013.
Americans’ low trust in many aspects of their government is part of a general trend of declining trust in U.S. institutions. But even in this broad context, the government is particularly suspect in the public’s eyes. The federal government has the least positive image of any business or industry sector measured, Congress engenders the lowest confidence of any institution that Gallup tests, and Americans rate the honesty and ethics of members of Congress as the lowest among 22 professions in Gallup’s most recent update.
Another longtime indicator of citizen frustration with government comes from Gallup’s monthly updates on the most important problem facing the nation. Government was the most frequently occurring single problem mentioned during all of 2014 and 2015, was the second most frequently mentioned problem in 2016, and has been at the top or near the top of the list throughout 2017.
The issues that Americans raise when they talk about government as the top problemcenter more on the process of government and political personalities — particularly infighting and bickering — than on worries about government power, size, or specific policies or tendencies.
Americans continue to have more trust in the government to handle international than domestic problems, although both are down substantially since Gallup began measuring them routinely 17 years ago. Even with these overall declines, a majority continue to have at least a fair amount of trust in the government to handle international issues.
Americans’ declining trust in the government is also reflected in the finding that both presidential and congressional job approval ratings are low on a historical basis. Just 13% say they approve of Congress, slightly above the all-time low of 9% recorded in the fall of 2013. Rank-and-file Republicans are essentially as down on the legislative branch of government as are Democrats, even though the GOP is in control of both houses. Presidential job approval is in the 35% to 40% range, well below historical averages as well as averages for elected presidents in their first year in office.
One consistent finding in recent decades: Americans have a relatively higher level of trust in the judicial branch than either the executive or legislative branch. The higher regard in which Americans hold the judicial branch is also reflected in the approval rating they give the Supreme Court — now 49%, and the highest in five years. Still, trust in all three branches is down on a longer-term basis.
Trust in the men and women in political office is also low. The majority of Americans, however, continue to have trust in the people of the country themselves, in essence the bedrock of democracy, and this is up slightly this year….(More)”.

Blocked: Why Some Companies Restrict Data Access to Reduce Competition and How Open APIs Can Help

Curated on November 7, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Daniel Castro and Michael Steinberg at the Center for Data Innovation: “Over the past few years, some scholars, advocates, and policymakers have argued that businesses which possess large quantities of data, such as social media companies, present inherent competition concerns. These concerns are misplaced for a number of reasons, one being that competitors can often obtain similar data from other sources. But in some industries and markets, a small number of firms have exclusive access to particular datasets, and they exploit their market power to limit access to that data through both technical and administrative means without any legitimate business justification. This type of anti-competitive behavior limits innovation and hurts consumers, and when these problematic practices occur, policymakers should intervene….

To promote competition, innovation, and consumer benefits in these three industries, policymakers should take the following steps:

In real estate, anti-trust regulators at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should investigate whether MLS actions to block data from online listing companies are collusive and exclusionary, and state policymakers should require brokers to provide open access to their real estate listings;
In the financial services, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) should establish guidance for financial institutions to allow third parties to access customer data, securely and with the customer’s permission, through open APIs;
In the air travel industry, the Department of Transportation (DOT) should establish rules requiring airlines to make all ticket pricing information publicly available in a standardized format and prohibit unfair marketing practices that limit distribution of this information to certain companies….(More)”.

What public transit can learn from Uber and Lyft

Curated on November 1, 2017July 19, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Junfeng Jiao, Juan Miró and Nicole McGrath in The Conversation: “…New technologies and business models can inspire us to reconsider how we move through society. “Sharing economy” companies use digital technologies to connect customers who want something with people offering it directly – in the case of Uber and Lyft, transportation services. Applying this approach to public transit offers new solutions to mobility problems. “Uberizing” public transit services – bringing them to customers on demand – can transform our approach to transportation issues….

In fact, public transit “Uberization” has already begun. Many U.S. cities are teaming up with ride-hailing companies to provide on-demand public transit, as well as so-called first- and last-mile connections to transit services. These offerings appeal to riders’ desire for individual flexibility. By connecting ride-hailing apps with public buses and rail, cities can help residents seamlessly move from one form of transportation to another.

Among many examples, in mid-2017 Capital Metro, the regional public transit agency for Austin, Texas, piloted the Pickup app, which allows customers to request rides to anywhere within its service zone in a section of northeast Austin from their phones. In Central Florida, five cities have launched a unique pilot program that offers discounted intercity Uber trips. And the city of Centennial, Colorado recently partnered with Lyft to provide transit users free trips to and from their Dry Creek light rail station.

Another option is offering fixed-route, on-demand bus service, like Ford’s Chariot, which is currently available in New York City, Austin, Seattle and San Francisco. This approach, which is a cross between a ride-hailing app and a bus route, provides more flexibility than traditional public transit while keeping costs low. Chariot operates during commuter hours, guarantees riders a seat once they reserve a ride online, and accepts employer-paid commuter benefits. Not to be left behind, Lyft and Uber are also trying to fill this hybrid bus/on-demand type service with Lyft Shuttle and UberPool.

This idea is not as new as it may seem. For years Americans have relied on a dependable on-demand, door-to-door public transportation system: The yellow school bus. According to the American School Bus Council, every school day in 2015 nearly 484,000 school buses transported 27 million children to and from school and school-related activities.

However, most school buses are used only twice a day, in the early morning and again in the afternoon. Local governments, transit agencies and private enterprises should consider partnering with school systems to turn school buses into on-demand transit services during idle hours.

We can also look to other countries for innovative ideas, such as colectivos – buses in South America that operate as shared taxis running on fixed routes. Via, a new ride-hailing vanpool service operating in New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C., was inspired by “sherut” shared taxis in Israel. Other forms of informal transit, such as Thailand’s tuk-tuks or jeepneys in the Philippines, may also inspire ways of filling transit gaps here in the United States. The beauty of Uberizing transportation services is that it can take many different forms.

Importantly, Uberization is not a replacement for traditional public transit. While there is some indication that ride-hailing apps reduce transit ridership, shared mobility services actually complement public transit….(More)”

Government 3.0 – Next Generation Government Technology Infrastructure and Services

Curated on October 31, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Adegboyega Ojo and Jeremy Millard: “Historically, technological change has had significant effect on the locus of administrative activity, cost of carrying out administrative tasks, the skill sets needed by officials to effectively function, rules and regulations, and the types of interactions citizens have with their public authorities. Next generation Public Sector Innovation will be “Government 3.0” powered by innovations related to Open and big data, administrative and business process management, Internet-of-Things and blockchains for public sector innovation to drive improvements in service delivery, decision and policy making and resource management. This book provides fresh insights into this transformation while also examining possible negative side effects of the increasing ope

nness of governments through the adoption of these new innovations. The goal is for technology policy makers to engage with the visions of Government 3.0 . Researchers should be able to critically examine some of the innovations described in the book as the basis for developing research agendas related to challenges associated with the adoption and use of some of the associated technologies. The book serves as a rich source of materials from leading experts in the field that enables Public administration practitioners to better understand how these new technologies impact traditional public administration paradigms. The book is suitable for graduate courses in Public Sector Innovation, Innovation in Public Administration, E-Government and Information Systems. Public sector technology policy makers, e-government, information systems and public administration researchers and practitioners should all benefit from reading this book….(More).”

colony

Curated on October 29, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

About Colony: “We believe that the most successful organizations of the future will be open.

Openness is not about open plan offices or ‘20% time’. It’s about how decisions get made, how labor is divided, and who controls the purse strings.

In an open organization, you’re empowered to do the work you care about, not just what you’re told to do. Decisions are made openly and transparently. Influence is earned by consistently demonstrating just how damn good you are. It means everyone’s incentives are aligned, because ownership is open to all.

And that means opportunity is open to all, and a new world of possibility opens up.

Colony is infrastructure for the future of work: self-organizing companies that run via software, not paperwork….

Infrastructure should be impartial and reliable.

One organization should not be beholden to, or have to trust another, in order to confidently conduct their business.

That’s why the Colony protocol is built as open source smart contracts on the Ethereum network….(More)”

Better Data for Better Policy: Accessing New Data Sources for Statistics Through Data Collaboratives

Curated on October 26, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Medium Blog by Stefaan Verhulst: “We live in an increasingly quantified world, one where data is driving key business decisions. Data is claimed to be the new competitive advantage. Yet, paradoxically, even as our reliance on data increases and the call for agile, data-driven policy making becomes more pronounced, many Statistical Offices are confronted with shrinking budgets and an increased demand to adjust their practices to a data age. If Statistical Offices fail to find new ways to deliver “evidence of tomorrow”, by leveraging new data sources, this could mean that public policy may be formed without access to the full range of available and relevant intelligence — as most business leaders have. At worst, a thinning evidence base and lack of rigorous data foundation could lead to errors and more “fake news,” with possibly harmful public policy implications.

While my talk was focused on the key ways data can inform and ultimately transform the full policy cycle (see full presentation here), a key premise I examined was the need to access, utilize and find insight in the vast reams of data and data expertise that exist in private hands through the creation of new kinds of public and private partnerships or “data collaboratives” to establish more agile and data-driven policy making.

Applied to statistics, such approaches have already shown promise in a number of settings and countries. Eurostat itself has, for instance, experimented together with Statistics Belgium, with leveraging call detail records provided by Proximus to document population density. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) recently launched a Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS)in partnership with companies like Dell-EMC and Microsoft. Other National Statistics Offices (NSOs) are considering using scanner data for monitoring consumer prices (Austria); leveraging smart meter data (Canada); or using telecom data for complementing transportation statistics (Belgium). We are now living undeniably in an era of data. Much of this data is held by private corporations. The key task is thus to find a way of utilizing this data for the greater public good.

Value Proposition — and Challenges

There are several reasons to believe that public policy making and official statistics could indeed benefit from access to privately collected and held data. Among the value propositions:

Using private data can increase the scope and breadth and thus insights offered by available evidence for policymakers;
Using private data can increase the quality and credibility of existing data sets (for instance, by complementing or validating them);
Private data can increase the timeliness and thus relevance of often-outdated information held by statistical agencies (social media streams, for example, can provide real-time insights into public behavior); and
Private data can lower costs and increase other efficiencies (for example, through more sophisticated analytical methods) for statistical organizations….(More)”.

Linux Foundation Debuts Community Data License Agreement

Curated on October 24, 2017May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Press Release: “The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced the Community Data License Agreement(CDLA) family of open data agreements. In an era of expansive and often underused data, the CDLA licenses are an effort to define a licensing framework to support collaborative communities built around curating and sharing “open” data.

Inspired by the collaborative software development models of open source software, the CDLA licenses are designed to enable individuals and organizations of all types to share data as easily as they currently share open source software code. Soundly drafted licensing models can help people form communities to assemble, curate and maintain vast amounts of data, measured in petabytes and exabytes, to bring new value to communities of all types, to build new business opportunities and to power new applications that promise to enhance safety and services.

The growth of big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has allowed people to extract unprecedented levels of insight from data. Now the challenge is to assemble the critical mass of data for those tools to analyze. The CDLA licenses are designed to help governments, academic institutions, businesses and other organizations open up and share data, with the goal of creating communities that curate and share data openly.

For instance, if automakers, suppliers and civil infrastructure services can share data, they may be able to improve safety, decrease energy consumption and improve predictive maintenance. Self-driving cars are heavily dependent on AI systems for navigation, and need massive volumes of data to function properly. Once on the road, they can generate nearly a gigabyte of data every second. For the average car, that means two petabytes of sensor, audio, video and other data each year.

Similarly, climate modeling can integrate measurements captured by government agencies with simulation data from other organizations and then use machine learning systems to look for patterns in the information. It’s estimated that a single model can yield a petabyte of data, a volume that challenges standard computer algorithms, but is useful for machine learning systems. This knowledge may help improve agriculture or aid in studying extreme weather patterns.

And if government agencies share aggregated data on building permits, school enrollment figures, sewer and water usage, their citizens benefit from the ability of commercial entities to anticipate their future needs and respond with infrastructure and facilities that arrive in anticipation of citizens’ demands.

“An open data license is essential for the frictionless sharing of the data that powers both critical technologies and societal benefits,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of The Linux Foundation. “The success of open source software provides a powerful example of what can be accomplished when people come together around a resource and advance it for the common good. The CDLA licenses are a key step in that direction and will encourage the continued growth of applications and infrastructure.”…(More)”.

Are you doing what’s needed to get the state to respond to its citizens? Or are you part of the problem?

Curated on October 24, 2017August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Vanessa Herringshaw at Making All Voices Count: ” …I’ve been reading over the incredibly rich and practically-orientated research and practice papers already on the Making All Voices Count website, and some of those coming out soon. There’s a huge amount of useful and challenging learning, and I’ll be putting out a couple of papers summarising some important threads later this year.

But as different civic tech and accountability actors prepare to come together in Brighton for Making All Voices Count’s final learning event later this week, I’m going to focus here on three things that really stood out and would benefit from the kind of ‘group grappling’ that such a gathering can best support. And I aim to be provocative!

Improving state responsiveness to citizens is a complex business – even more than we realised – and a lot more complex than most interventions are designed to address. If we don’t address this complexity, our interventions won’t work. And that risks making things worse, not better.
It’s clear we need to make more of a shift from narrow, ‘tactical’ approaches to more complex, systems-based ‘strategic’ approaches. Thinking is developing on how to do this in theory. But it’s not clear that our current institutional approaches will support, or even allow, a major shift in practice.
So when we each look at our individual roles and those of our organisations, are we part of the solution, or part of the problem?

Let’s look at each of these in turn….(More)”