Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Anil Ananthaswamy: “Machine-learning systems are making life-altering decisions for us: approving mortgage loans, determining whether a tumour is cancerous, or deciding whether someone gets bail. They now influence discoveries in chemistry, biology and physics – the study of genomes, extra-solar planets, even the intricacies of quantum systems.

We are living through a revolution in artificial intelligence that is not slowing down. This major shift is based on simple mathematics, some of which goes back centuries: linear algebra and calculus, the stuff of eighteenth-century mathematics. Indeed by the mid-1850s, a lot of the groundwork was all done. It took the development of computer science and the kindling of 1990s computer chips designed for video games to ignite the explosion of AI that we see all around us today. In this enlightening book, Anil Ananthaswamy explains the fundamental maths behind AI, which suggests that the basics of natural and artificial intelligence might follow the same mathematical rules…(More)”.

Governing Data and AI to Protect Inner Freedoms Includes a Role for IP

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Giuseppina (Pina) D’Agostino and Robert Fay: “Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has caught regulators everywhere by surprise. Its ungoverned and growing ubiquity is similar to that of the large digital platforms that play an important role in the work and personal lives of billions of individuals worldwide. These platforms rely on advertising revenue dependent on user data derived from numerous undisclosed sources, including through covert tracking of interactions on digital platforms, surveillance of conversations, monitoring of activity across platforms and acquisition of biometric data through immersive virtual reality games, just to name a few.

This complex milieu creates a suite of public policy challenges. One of the most important yet least explored is the intersection of intellectual property (IP), data governance, AI and the platforms’ underlying business model. The global scale, the quasi-monopolistic dominance enjoyed by the large platforms, and their control over data and data analytics have explicit implications for fundamental human rights, including freedom of thought…(More)”.

Selecting Anticipatory Methods for Migration Policy: Eight Key Elements To Consider

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Sara Marcucci, Stefaan Verhulst, and Alina Menocal Peters: “Over the past several weeks, we’ve embarked on a journey exploring anticipatory methods for migration policy. Our exploration has taken us through the value proposition, challenges, taxonomy, and practical applications of these innovative methods. In this concluding blog, we unveil eight key considerations that policymakers’ may want to consider when choosing an anticipatory method for migration policy. By dissecting these factors, our intent is to equip decision-makers to navigate the complexities inherent in selecting anticipatory methodologies. 

  1. Nature and Determinants of Migration

When addressing migration policy challenges, the multifaceted nature of the type of migration is important when selecting anticipatory methods. Indeed, the specific challenges associated with anticipating migration can vary widely based on the context, causes, and characteristics of the movement. The complexity of the question at hand often determines the selection of methods or approaches. For instance, managing the integration of displaced populations following a conflict involves intricate factors such as cultural adaptation, economic integration, and community dynamics. If the question is about understanding the inferences and drivers that can predict migration patterns, methods like Cross-impact Analysis or System Dynamics Modeling can prove to be valuable. These can facilitate a comprehensive assessment of interdependencies and potential ripple effects, offering policymakers insights into the dynamic and interconnected nature of challenges associated with migration…(More)…See also Special Series on Anticipating Migration.

Guardrails: Guiding Human Decisions in the Age of AI

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Urs Gasser and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger: “When we make decisions, our thinking is informed by societal norms, “guardrails” that guide our decisions, like the laws and rules that govern us. But what are good guardrails in today’s world of overwhelming information flows and increasingly powerful technologies, such as artificial intelligence? Based on the latest insights from the cognitive sciences, economics, and public policy, Guardrails offers a novel approach to shaping decisions by embracing human agency in its social context.

In this visionary book, Urs Gasser and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger show how the quick embrace of technological solutions can lead to results we don’t always want, and they explain how society itself can provide guardrails more suited to the digital age, ones that empower individual choice while accounting for the social good, encourage flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, and ultimately help us to make better decisions as we tackle the most daunting problems of our times, such as global injustice and climate change.

Whether we change jobs, buy a house, or quit smoking, thousands of decisions large and small shape our daily lives. Decisions drive our economies, seal the fate of democracies, create war or peace, and affect the well-being of our planet. Guardrails challenges the notion that technology should step in where our own decision making fails, laying out a surprisingly human-centered set of principles that can create new spaces for better decisions and a more equitable and prosperous society…(More)”.

Collective action for responsible AI in health

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD Report: “Artificial intelligence (AI) will have profound impacts across health systems, transforming health care, public health, and research. Responsible AI can accelerate efforts toward health systems being more resilient, sustainable, equitable, and person-centred. This paper provides an overview of the background and current state of artificial intelligence in health, perspectives on opportunities, risks, and barriers to success. The paper proposes several areas to be explored for policy-makers to advance the future of responsible AI in health that is adaptable to change, respects individuals, champions equity, and achieves better health outcomes for all.

The areas to be explored relate to trust, capacity building, evaluation, and collaboration. This recognises that the primary forces that are needed to unlock the value from artificial intelligence are people-based and not technical…(More)”

When Farmland Becomes the Front Line, Satellite Data and Analysis Can Fight Hunger

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Inbal Becker-Reshef and Mary Mitkish: “When a shock to the global food system occurs—such as during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022—collecting the usual ground-based data is all but impossible. The Russia–Ukraine war has turned farmland into the front lines of a war zone. In this situation, it is unreasonable to expect civilians to walk onto fields riddled with land mines and damaged by craters to collect information on what has been planted, where it was planted, and if it could be harvested. The inherent danger of ground-based data collection, especially in occupied territories of the conflict, has demanded a different way to assess planted and harvested areas and forecast crop production.

Satellite-based information can provide this evidence quickly and reliably. At NASA Harvest, NASA’s Global Food Security and Agriculture Consortium, one of our main aims is to use satellite-based information to fill gaps in the agriculture information ecosystem. Since the start of the Russia–Ukraine conflict, we have been using satellite imagery to estimate the impact of the war on Ukraine’s agricultural lands at the request of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine. Our work demonstrates how effective this approach can be for delivering critical and timely insights for decisionmakers.

Prior to the war, Ukraine accounted for over 10% of the world’s wheat, corn, and barley trade and was the number one sunflower oil exporter, accounting for close to 50% of the global market. In other words, food produced in Ukraine is critical for its national economy, for global trade, and for feeding millions across the globe…(More)”.

The City as a License: Design, Rights and Civics in a Blockchain Society

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Special Issue by Martijn de Waal et al: “Building upon critical work on smart cities, platform urbanism and algorithmic governance, this special issue proposes the ‘generative metaphor’ of the City as a License as a lens to analyze the digitally enhanced management of urban resources and infrastructures from a perspective of rights and agency. Such a perspective has become especially urgent with the rise of new data practices around the emergence of distributed ledger technologies, as they may introduce additional layers of complexity to the ‘algorithmic governance’ of cities. This is particularly due to their tokenization of resources, identities, and rights and automatic administration of access to urban resources. Contributions in this special issue investigate the affordances of distributed ledger technologies with regards to civic agency in the governance of collective urban resources. Could these newly emerging management systems for energy production and consumption or property rights contribute to pro-social and sustainable ways of governing and managing communities and their resources, according to the logic of the commons? The lens of the City as a License not only allows for such an analysis of potentialities, but also for a critical view on these techno-social systems, such as the way in which they may repeat the inequities and obfuscations of existing systems, produce unintended consequences through complex processes, and complicate accountability…(More)”.

AI’s big rift is like a religious schism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Henry Farrell: “…Henri de Saint-Simon, a French utopian, proposed a new religion, worshipping the godlike force of progress, with Isaac Newton as its chief saint. He believed that humanity’s sole uniting interest, “the progress of the sciences”, should be directed by the “elect of humanity”, a 21-member “Council of Newton”. Friedrich Hayek, a 20th-century economist, later gleefully described how this ludicrous “religion of the engineers” collapsed into a welter of feuding sects.

Today, the engineers of artificial intelligence (ai) are experiencing their own religious schism. One sect worships progress, canonising Hayek himself. The other is gripped by terror of godlike forces. Their battle has driven practical questions to the margins of debate…(More)”.

The biggest data protection fight you’ve never heard of

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Russell Brandom: “One of the biggest negotiations in tech has been happening almost entirely behind the scenes. Organized as a side letter to the World Trade Organization, the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on E-commerce has been developing quietly for more than six years, picking up particular momentum in the last six months. The goal is to codify a new set of rules for international online trade between the United States and 88 other countries throughout Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

But while the participants basically agree about the nuts and bolts of copyright and licensing, broader questions of data protection have taken center stage. The group brings together free-market diehards like Singapore with more protectionist countries like Brazil, so it’s no surprise that there are different ideas of privacy in play. But this kind of international bargaining can play a surprising role in shaping what’s possible. Countries can still set tougher privacy rules at a national level, but with the offending parties almost always based overseas, a contravening agreement might make those rules difficult to enforce…(More)”.

Do disappearing data repositories pose a threat to open science and the scholarly record?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Dorothea Strecker, Heinz Pampel, Rouven Schabinger and Nina Leonie Weisweiler: “Research data repositories, such as Zenodo or the UK Data Archive, are specialised information infrastructures that focus on the curation and dissemination of research data. One of repositories’ main tasks is maintaining their collections long-term, see for example the TRUST Principles, or the requirements of the certification organization CoreTrustSeal. Long-term preservation is also a prerequisite for several data practices that are getting increasing attention, such as data reuse and data citation.

For data to remain usable, the infrastructures that host them also have to be kept operational. However, the long-term operation of research data repositories is challenging, and sometimes, for varying reasons and despite best efforts, they are shut down….

In a recent study we therefore set out to take an infrastructure perspective on the long-term preservation of research data by investigating repositories across disciplines and types that were shut down. We also tried to estimate the impact of repository shutdown on data availability…

We found that repository shutdown was not rare: 6.2% of all repositories listed in re3data were shut down. Since the launch of the registry in 2012, at least one repository has been shut down each year (see Fig.1). The median age of a repository when shutting down was 12 years…(More)”.