Introduction by Mila Gasco-Hernandez and Carlos Jimenez-Gomezto to Special Issue of Social Science Computer Review: “The topic of open justice has only been little explored perhaps due to its traditionally having been considered a “closed” field. There is still a need to know what open justice really means, to explore the use of information and technology in enabling open justice, and to understand what openness in the judiciary can do to improve government, society, and democracy. This special issue aims to shed light on the concept of openness in the judiciary by identifying and analyzing initiatives across the world….(More)”.... (More >)
Regulating the Regulators: Tracing the Emergence of the Political Transparency Laws in Chile
Conference Paper by Bettina Schorr: “Due to high social inequalities and weak public institutions, political corruption and the influence of business elites on policy-makers are widespread in the Andean region. The consequences for the opportunities of sustainable development are serious: regulation limiting harmful business activities or (re-)distributive reforms are difficult to achieve and public resources often end up as private gains instead of serving development purposes. Given international and domestic pressures, political corruption has reached the top of the political agendas in many countries. However, frequently transparency goals do not materialize into new binding policies or, when reforms are... (More >)
Reach is crowdsourcing street criminal incidents to reduce crime in Lima
Michael Krumholtz at LATAM Tech: “Unfortunately, in Latin America and many other places around the world, robberies are a part of urban life. Moisés Salazar of Lima has been a victim of petty crime in the streets, which is what led him to create Reach. The application that markets itself as a kind of Waze for street crime alerts users through a map of incident reports or crimes that display visibly on your phone…. Salazar said that Reach helps users before, during and after incidents that could victimize them. That’s because the map allows users to avoid certain areas... (More >)
Computers Can Solve Your Problem. You May Not Like The Answer
David Scharfenberg at the Boston Globe: “Years of research have shown that teenagers need their sleep. Yet high schools often start very early in the morning. Starting them later in Boston would require tinkering with elementary and middle school schedules, too — a Gordian knot of logistics, pulled tight by the weight of inertia, that proved impossible to untangle. Until the computers came along. Last year, the Boston Public Schools asked MIT graduate students Sébastien Martin and Arthur Delarue to build an algorithm that could do the enormously complicated work of changing start times at dozens of schools —... (More >)
Google, T-Mobile Tackle 911 Call Problem
Sarah Krouse at the Wall Street Journal: “Emergency call operators will soon have an easier time pinpointing the whereabouts of Android phone users. Google has struck a deal with T-Mobile US to pipe location data from cellphones with Android operating systems in the U.S. to emergency call centers, said Fiona Lee, who works on global partnerships for Android emergency location services. The move is a sign that smartphone operating system providers and carriers are taking steps to improve the quality of location data they send when customers call 911. Locating callers has become a growing problem for 911 operators... (More >)
One of New York City’s most urgent design challenges is invisible
Diana Budds at Curbed: “Algorithms are invisible, but they already play a large role in shaping New York City’s built environment, schooling, public resources, and criminal justice system. Earlier this year, the City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio formed the Automated Decision Systems Task Force, the first of its kind in the country, to analyze how NYC deploys automated systems to ensure fairness, equity, and accountability are upheld. This week, 20 experts in the field of civil rights and artificial intelligence co-signed a letter to the task force to help influence its official report, which is scheduled to... (More >)
What’s Wrong with Public Policy Education
Francis Fukuyama at the American Interest: “Most programs train students to become capable policy analysts, but with no understanding of how to implement those policies in the real world…Public policy education is ripe for an overhaul… Public policy education in most American universities today reflects a broader problem in the social sciences, which is the dominance of economics. Most programs center on teaching students a battery of quantitative methods that are useful in policy analysis: applied econometrics, cost-benefit analysis, decision analysis, and, most recently, use of randomized experiments for program evaluation. Many schools build their curricula around these methods... (More >)
NZ to perform urgent algorithm ‘stocktake’ fearing data misuse within government
Asha McLean at ZDNet: “The New Zealand government has announced it will be assessing how government agencies are using algorithms to analyse data, hoping to ensure transparency and fairness in decisions that affect citizens. A joint statement from Minister for Government Digital Services Clare Curran and Minister of Statistics James Shaw said the algorithm “stocktake” will be conducted with urgency, but cites only the growing interest in data analytics as the reason for the probe. “The government is acutely aware of the need to ensure transparency and accountability as interest grows regarding the challenges and opportunities associated with emerging... (More >)
How artificial intelligence is transforming the world
Report by Darrell West and John Allen at Brookings: “Most people are not very familiar with the concept of artificial intelligence (AI). As an illustration, when 1,500 senior business leaders in the United States in 2017 were asked about AI, only 17 percent said they were familiar with it. A number of them were not sure what it was or how it would affect their particular companies. They understood there was considerable potential for altering business processes, but were not clear how AI could be deployed within their own organizations. Despite its widespread lack of familiarity, AI is a... (More >)
Algorithmic Impact Assessment (AIA) framework
Report by AINow Institute: “Automated decision systems are currently being used by public agencies, reshaping how criminal justice systems work via risk assessment algorithms1 and predictive policing, optimizing energy use in critical infrastructure through AI-driven resource allocation, and changing our employment4 and educational systems through automated evaluation tools and matching algorithms.Researchers, advocates, and policymakers are debating when and where automated decision systems are appropriate, including whether they are appropriate at all in particularly sensitive domains. Questions are being raised about how to fully assess the short and long term impacts of these systems, whose interests they serve, and if... (More >)
