Paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and Peter Pomerantsev: “Democracy is in retreat around the globe. Many commentators have blamed the Internet for this development, whereas others have celebrated the Internet as a tool for liberation, with each opinion being buttressed by supporting evidence. We try to resolve this paradox by reviewing some of the pressure points that arise between human cognition and the online information architecture, and their fallout for the well-being of democracy. We focus on the role of the attention economy, which has monetised dwell time on platforms, and the role of algorithms that satisfy users’ presumed preferences. We further note the inherent asymmetry in power between platforms and users that arises from these pressure points, and we conclude by sketching out the principles of a new Internet with democratic credentials….(More)”.
The role of artificial intelligence in disinformation
Paper by Noémi Bontridder and Yves Poullet: “Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are playing an overarching role in the disinformation phenomenon our world is currently facing. Such systems boost the problem not only by increasing opportunities to create realistic AI-generated fake content, but also, and essentially, by facilitating the dissemination of disinformation to a targeted audience and at scale by malicious stakeholders. This situation entails multiple ethical and human rights concerns, in particular regarding human dignity, autonomy, democracy, and peace. In reaction, other AI systems are developed to detect and moderate disinformation online. Such systems do not escape from ethical and human rights concerns either, especially regarding freedom of expression and information. Having originally started with ascending co-regulation, the European Union (EU) is now heading toward descending co-regulation of the phenomenon. In particular, the Digital Services Act proposal provides for transparency obligations and external audit for very large online platforms’ recommender systems and content moderation. While with this proposal, the Commission focusses on the regulation of content considered as problematic, the EU Parliament and the EU Council call for enhancing access to trustworthy content. In light of our study, we stress that the disinformation problem is mainly caused by the business model of the web that is based on advertising revenues, and that adapting this model would reduce the problem considerably. We also observe that while AI systems are inappropriate to moderate disinformation content online, and even to detect such content, they may be more appropriate to counter the manipulation of the digital ecosystem….(More)”.
Checks in the Balance: Legislative Capacity and the Dynamics of Executive Power
Book by Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower: “The specter of unbridled executive power looms large in the American political imagination. Are checks and balances enough to constrain ambitious executives? Checks in the Balance presents a new theory of separation of powers that brings legislative capacity to the fore, explaining why Congress and state legislatures must possess both the opportunities and the means to constrain presidents and governors—and why, without these tools, executive power will prevail.
Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower reveal how legislative capacity—which they conceive of as the combination of a legislature’s resources and policymaking powers—is the key to preventing the accumulation of power in the hands of an encroaching executive. They show how low-capacity legislatures face difficulties checking the executive through mechanisms such as discretion and oversight, and how presidents and governors unilaterally bypass such legislative adversaries to impose their will. When legislative capacity is high, however, the legislative branch can effectively stifle executives. Bolton and Thrower draw on a wealth of historical evidence on congressional capacity, oversight, discretion, and presidential unilateralism. They also examine thousands of gubernatorial executive orders, demonstrating how varying capacity in the states affects governors’ power.
Checks in the Balance affirms the centrality of legislatures in tempering executive power—and sheds vital new light on how and why they fail….(More)”.
How Smart Tech Is Transforming Nonprofits
Essay by Allison Fine and Beth Kanter: “Covid-19 created cascades of shortages, disruptions, and problems that rolled downhill and landed in the most vulnerable neighborhoods. In these neighborhoods, it’s often nonprofit organizations that provide services to members of the community. While the pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation throughout the economy, the nonprofit sector was not immune to the need for nearly overnight innovation. As experts on the use of technology for social good, we’ve observed the many ways that nonprofits have been adopting “smart tech” to further social change in the wake of the pandemic, which we chronicle in our upcoming book, The Smart Nonprofit.
We use “smart tech” as an umbrella term for advanced digital technologies that make decisions for people. It includes artificial intelligence (AI) and its subsets and cousins, such as machine learning, natural language processing, smart forms, chatbots, robots, and more.
The use of smart tech by social service agencies and other nonprofits exploded during the pandemic. For example, food banks deployed robots to pack meals; homeless services agencies used chatbots to give legal and mental health advice; and fundraising departments turned to AI-powered software to identify potential donors.Insight Center CollectionTaking on Digital TransformationMoving your company forward in the wake of the pandemic.
When the pandemic began and schools switched to remote learning, many students who relied on school lunches were not able to receive them. Here’s where nonprofits stepped in to use smart technologies for social good. For example, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University used machine learning to flip the system on its head; instead of using buses to deliver children to schools, new bus routes were created to bring meals to children in the Pittsburgh area in the most efficient way.
The use of chatbots to provide support and deliver services to vulnerable populations increased tremendously during the pandemic. For instance, the Rentervention chatbot was developed by the legal aid nonprofits in Illinois to help tenants navigate eviction and other housing issues they were experiencing due to Covid-19. It also directs renters to pro bono legal advice….(More)”.
Senators unveil bipartisan bill requiring social media giants to open data to researchers
Article by Rebecca Klar: “Meta and other social media companies would be required to share their data with outside researchers under a new bill announced by a bipartisan group of senators on Thursday.
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) underscored the need for their bill based on information leaked about Meta’s platforms in the so-called Facebook Papers, though the proposal would also apply to other social media companies.
The bill, the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, would allow independent researchers to submit proposals to the National Science Foundation. If the requests are approved, social media companies would be required to provide the necessary data subject to certain privacy protections.
“It’s increasingly clear that more transparency is needed so that the billions of people who use Facebook, Twitter, and similar platforms can fully understand the impact of those tradeoffs. This bipartisan proposal is an important step that will bring much needed information about the impact of social media companies to light and ought to be a crucial part of any comprehensive strategy that Congress can take to regulate major social media companies,” Coons said in a statement.
If companies failed to comply with the requirement under the bill, they would be subject to enforcement from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and face losing immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 is a controversial provision that provides immunity for internet companies based on content posted by third parties, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed measures to weaken its reach….(More)”.
What Biden’s Democracy Summit Is Missing
Essay by Hélène Landemore: “U.S. President Joe Biden is set to host a virtual summit this week for leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector to discuss the renewal of democracy. We can expect to see plenty of worthy yet predictable issues discussed: the threat of foreign agents interfering in elections, online disinformation, political polarization, and the temptation of populist and authoritarian alternatives. For the United States specifically, the role of money in politics, partisan gerrymandering, endless gridlock in Congress, and the recent voter suppression efforts targeting Black communities in the South should certainly be on the agenda.
All are important and relevant topics. Something more fundamental, however, is needed.
The clear erosion of our political institutions is just the latest evidence, if any more was needed, that it’s past time to discuss what democracy actually means—and why we should care about it. We have to question, moreover, whether the political systems we have are even worth restoring or if we should more substantively alter them, including through profound constitutional reforms.
Such a discussion has never been more vital. The systems in place today once represented a clear improvement on prior regimes—monarchies, theocracies, and other tyrannies—but it may be a mistake to call them adherents of democracy at all. The word roughly translates from its original Greek as “people’s power.” But the people writ large don’t hold power in these systems. Elites do. Consider that in the United States, according to a 2014 study by the political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, only the richest 10 percent of the population seems to have any causal effect on public policy. The other 90 percent, they argue, is left with “democracy by coincidence”—getting what they want only when they happen to want the same thing as the people calling the shots.
This discrepancy between reality—democracy by coincidence—and the ideal of people’s power is baked in as a result of fundamental design flaws dating back to the 18th century. The only way to rectify those mistakes is to rework the design—to fully reimagine what it means to be democratic. Tinkering at the edges won’t do….(More)”
Citizen Empowerment through Digital Transformation in Government
Book edited by Neeta Verma: “Technological innovations across the globe are bringing profound change to our society. Governments around the world are experiencing and embracing this technology-led shift. New platforms, emerging technologies, customizable products, and changing citizen demand and outlook towards government services are reshaping the whole journey. When it comes to the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in any sector, the Government of India has emerged as an early adopter of these technologies and has also focused on last-mile delivery of citizen-centric services.
Citizen Empowerment through Digital Transformation in Government takes us through the four-decade long transformational journey of various key sectors in India where ICT has played a major role in reimagining government services to citizens across the country. It touches upon the emergence of the National Informatics Centre as a premier technology institution of the Government of India and its collaborative efforts with the Central, State Governments, as well as the District level administration, to deliver best-in-class solutions.
Inspiring and informative, the book is filled with real-life transformation stories that have helped to lead the people and the Government of India to realize their vision of a digitally empowered nation….(More)”
Data Science and Official Statistics: Toward a New Data Culture
Essay by Stefan Schweinfest and Ronald Jansen: “In the digital age, data are generated continuously by many different devices and are being used by many different actors. National statistical offices (NSOs) should benefit from these opportunities to improve data for decision-making. What could be the expanding role for official statistics in this context and how does this relate to emerging disciplines like data science? This article explores some new ideas. In the avalanche of new data, society may need a data steward, and the NSO could take on that role, while paying close attention to the protection of privacy. Data science will become increasingly important for extracting meaningful information from large amounts of data. NSOs will need to hire data scientists and data engineers and will need to train their staff in these fast-developing fields. NSOs will also need to clearly communicate new and experimental data and foster a good understanding of statistics. Collaboration of official statistics with the private sector, academia, and civil society will be the new way of working and the fundamental principles of official statistics may have to apply to all those actors. This article envisions that we are gradually working toward such a new data culture…(More)”.
Making change: What works?
Report by Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Harry Quilter-Pinner, and Nicolas Treloar: “Movements change the world. Throughout history, loosely organised networks of individuals and organisations have sought changes to societies – and won. From the abolitionist struggle and campaigns for voting rights to #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, the impact of movements can be seen everywhere.
Over the last year, IPPR and the Runnymede Trust have sought to understand what we can learn from movements that have made change – as well as those who have fallen short – for our efforts to create change today.
We did this by exploring what worked and didn’t work for four movements from recent decades. These were: LGBTQ+ rights, race equality, climate action, and health inequality….(More)”.
A Fix-It Job for Government Tech
Shira Ovide at the New York Times: “U.S. government technology has a mostly deserved reputation for being expensive and awful.
Computer systems sometimes operate with Sputnik-era software. A Pentagon project to modernize military technology has little to show after five years. During the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans struggled to get government help like unemployment insurance, vaccine appointments and food stamps because of red tape, inflexible technology and other problems.
Whether you believe that the government should be more involved in Americans’ lives or less, taxpayers deserve good value for the technology we pay for. And we often don’t get it. It’s part of Robin Carnahan’s job to take on this problem.
A former secretary of state for Missouri and a government tech consultant, Carnahan had been one of my guides to how public sector technology could work better. Then in June, she was confirmed as the administrator of the General Services Administration, the agency that oversees government acquisitions, including of technology.
Carnahan said that she and other Biden administration officials wanted technology used for fighting wars or filing taxes to be as efficient as our favorite app.
“Bad technology sinks good policy,” Carnahan told me. “We’re on a mission to make government tech more user-friendly and be smarter about how we buy it and use it.”
Carnahan highlighted three areas she wanted to address: First, change the process for government agencies to buy technology to recognize that tech requires constant updates. Second, simplify the technology for people using government services. And third, make it more appealing for people with tech expertise to work for the government, even temporarily.
All of that is easier said than done, of course. People in government have promised similar changes before, and it’s not a quick fix. Technology dysfunction is also often a symptom of poor policies.
But in Carnahan’s view, one way to build faith in government is to prove that it can be competent. And technology is an essential area to show that…(More)”.